Ding-dong—
The crisp electronic doorbell rang out abruptly.
Hoshino Haruka instantly snapped back to her senses.
The dark, murky fog in her eyes shattered.
Only then did she truly realize what kind of inhuman thing she had almost done just now.
Clang.
The small spoon was thrown back onto the porcelain plate in a panic, producing a sharp, ear-piercing clatter.
“I… I’ll go open the door.”
Hoshino Haruka didn’t even dare meet her eyes. She suddenly stood up.
The chair legs scraped against the floor with a short, grating sound.
She turned around almost as if fleeing and quickly walked toward the entrance.
She wasn’t going to feed her anymore?
Su Ruanruan tentatively opened one eye, feeling a little nervous.
The pair of cat ears that had been flattened against her head from extreme tension twitched twice and slowly stood back up.
She reached out and touched her slightly warm lips.
Her heart, which had been pounding violently just moments ago, still hadn’t completely calmed down.
However, watching Hoshino Haruka’s fleeing back, Su Ruanruan—who had been scared out of her wits just seconds earlier—suddenly felt her ego inflate again.
Hmph, she ran so fast… She was acting like she wanted to eat someone just now.
What a pathetic— cowardly, pathetic little fish, hahaha.
Even a Magical Girl was still just a timid little virgin brat at heart.
What a waste of my time!
She picked up her chopsticks, poked a piece of meat covered in sauce, and stuffed it into her mouth.
Her bare white feet gently swung back and forth under the table.
Wumph, this is so delicious!!
***
At the entrance.
Hoshino Haruka leaned against the door and pressed the back of her hand against her still-burning cheek.
She took a deep breath of cool air, forcefully driving away the sticky feeling in her mind, before finally reaching out to turn the doorknob.
Standing outside was an extremely eye-catching little girl.
Her black hair, cut to ear length, framed her cheeks neatly. She wore a black-and-white gothic-style dress.
Despite having the physique of a human elementary school student, her presence felt as powerful as that of an older sister.
Kanzaki Chiaki looked up.
Her calm, rippleless jet-black eyes naturally swept over Hoshino Haruka from head to toe.
The collar of her shirt had some unnatural wrinkles. A suspicious flush still lingered on her fair neck and earlobes.
Hmm. It seems I interrupted her just now.
How unfortunate.
Kanzaki Chiaki made her judgment internally, but her face remained expressionless.
“Hello.”
Kanzaki Chiaki’s voice was flat.
“I’m Kanzaki Chiaki. I just moved here from another universe. The god from the Clock Tower who calls himself ‘Ha Niu’ sent me here to do entry registration. There are two of us. We came here for tourism and to visit family. Do you have time?”
Hoshino Haruka was stunned for a moment.
Ha Niu?
That guy went and dumped the guiding work on her again.
She nodded helplessly, took half a step back, and raised her right hand to make a grasping motion in the air.
Dots of blue-black light quickly gathered in her palm, and a delicate magical transformation device appeared out of thin air.
She pressed it.
Henshin!!
An energetic BGM suddenly played.
Amidst the light, Hoshino Haruka spun around and struck a smiling peace-sign pose, completing her transformation.
Magical Girl Azure!!
Her soft home clothes were replaced by a skirt in dark teal and pure black.
Cold metal arm guards fitted snugly against her forearms, and the tip of the long magical staff in her hand glowed with a cold teal light.
From activation to the completion of the magic construction, the entire transformation process took 0.000000021 seconds.
Hoshino Haruka’s eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly.
Too slow. Looks like my condition isn’t great today.
Meanwhile, Kanzaki Chiaki’s originally dead-water-like black pupils suddenly contracted.
She subconsciously shifted her center of gravity half an inch backward, and her fingers hanging by her sides curled slightly.
What an exaggerated amount of magic power.
The moment Hoshino Haruka completed her transformation, in Kanzaki Chiaki’s magical vision, the air in front of her seemed to have been completely sucked dry, replaced by a vast, heavy, sky-like magical power pressing down from above.
As expected of the new-generation protagonist chosen by the world’s will…
Kanzaki Chiaki silently sighed in her heart.
Even her wife at her peak had once been a chosen protagonist, yet compared to the girl in front of her, she was probably far inferior in terms of magic purity.
She quietly swallowed the polite words she had originally wanted to say, and a rare trace of seriousness appeared in her eyes.
Hoshino Haruka didn’t notice the other party’s unusual reaction.
She gripped her staff and lightly drew the tip through the air beside her, skillfully pulling two blank registration forms out of the spatial rift she had cut open.
At that moment, the internal Magical Girl communication channel in her mind connected.
“Um… Can you hear me, Haruka? Ha Niu wuu…”
A somewhat slow, soft, and weak little girl’s voice sounded faintly in Hoshino Haruka’s mind.
“Three children came from the neighboring world, and one of them seems to be from our world. Haruka, can you help check what’s going on? Please, Ha Niu wuu…”
Hoshino Haruka’s hand holding the forms paused.
She glanced at Kanzaki Chiaki outside the door and replied silently in her mind: 【But the other party only has two people.】
The other side went quiet for two seconds.
“Eh? That’s not right… There are clearly three magical signatures. Let Ha Niu check…”
The next second, without giving Hoshino Haruka any time to react, an indescribably vast fluctuation swept across the entire world in a gentle yet absolute manner.
Hoshino Haruka’s heartbeat skipped half a beat.
This is bad.
There was still a silver-haired little catgirl hidden in her house without any temporary residence permit. If Ha Niu discovered her, she would be sent back!
“Ah…”
Ha Niu’s voice sounded again, carrying a trace of weak distress.
“So Haruka was secretly hiding one at home… That makes three people, Ha Niu wuu.”
“The extra little witch is in your house. She looks like an illegal intruder. I don’t even have a backup record for her, Ha Niu wuu…”
Hoshino Haruka instinctively tightened her grip on the staff.
She opened her mouth, about to make up some excuse in the communication channel to protect the little one inside.
“Hmm… But,”
Ha Niu hesitated for a moment on the other end, her voice becoming even smaller.
“That little one is probably Haruka’s friend, right?”
“Although this is a bit against the rules… Ha Niu will go ahead and register her for you too, Ha Niu wuu. Haruka, you have to take good care of her, okay…”
Hearing those words, Hoshino Haruka’s tense shoulders finally relaxed.
While the communication was still connected, she hesitated for a moment before vaguely asking about her own abnormal condition.
【Ha Niu… What exactly is my current state? These past two days I’ve been feeling really off. I keep having all kinds of bad thoughts.】
She truly couldn’t understand why she would have all sorts of strange ideas the moment she got close to that silver-haired girl.
She had even almost kissed her just now.
“Ah, that…”
Ha Niu’s tone turned into one of sudden realization.
“The little witch in your house seems to possess a ‘seduction’ authority similar to that of a succubus. It’s actually a very powerful ability.”
“It’s just that this little one is too stupid. She doesn’t know how to control it at all, and her magic power keeps leaking out like a broken faucet. Being constantly drained and passively emitting this has also been bad for her development… Ha Niu wuu.”
Hoshino Haruka stood frozen in place.
No, wasn’t Su Ruanruan a catgirl? How did she become a witch?
So… it wasn’t that she had some weird fetish.
This idiot had been unconsciously emitting this seductive aura the whole time?
And it could even affect someone like her, who had EX-rank magic resistance?
Hoshino Haruka quietly let out a huge sigh of relief, while also pressing her fingers against her brow in slight exasperation.
“Ha Niu will send you a charm, Ha Niu wuu.”
Along with the weak trailing tone, a faint light glowed in Hoshino Haruka’s palm, and a tiny golden rune quietly sank into her skin.
“Use your magic power to fuse this into her body. It can temporarily seal that leaking passive ability. Ha Niu is going to sleep now. Early to bed and early to rise is good for the body. Haruka, I’ll leave it to you, Ha Niu wuu~”
The communication cut off, and silence returned to her mind.
***
At the same time.
Su Ruanruan, who had been waiting in the dining room, put down her chopsticks out of boredom.
The conversation at the entrance had been going on intermittently, but Hoshino Haruka still hadn’t come back.
“Haruka, are you done yet…”
She let out a small yawn, rubbed her eyes, and walked out of the dining room barefoot, pat-pat stepping across the wooden floor.
She peeked toward the entrance.
Her gaze passed over Hoshino Haruka’s strange outfit.
Su Ruanruan’s half-lidded eyes happened to meet the gaze of the black-haired girl standing outside the door.
The yawn that had been halfway out got stuck in her throat.
Su Ruanruan felt her scalp explode.
All the blood in her body seemed to drain away in an instant. She stood frozen in place as if someone had cast a binding spell on her.
This—
This, this, this—
Who the hell are you!!
—She looked exactly like Kanzaki Yoruha when she was little!!
