Chapter 39: Remembering the Past

Peck.

Raven pecked Yuan Qing hard on the face. Sachiko just smoked, saying nothing.

“Do you have any common sense?” Yuan Qing rubbed the spot that had been pecked, his expression somewhat annoyed. “If you’re going to peck someone, don’t peck the face. What if you hit an eye?”

But Raven ignored his protest. Already puffed up with anger, it just retorted just as heatedly, “If you don’t have the determination to win, any fight is just futile! Worrying about your opponent’s feelings, fighting with such a half-hearted attitude like that… if that’s your mindset, you should just give up on being a Magical Girl right now!”

Yuan Qing frowned. “I will give it up.”

“Hmph, give up then! Giving up is fine too!”

So Yuan Qing turned and left without a shred of mercy, his figure gradually melting into the evening glow on the horizon.

Now, outside the grounds of the Tokyo Metropolitan Magical Girl Arena, only Sachiko and Raven remained, casually sitting on a bench. The crowd had all dispersed, leaving behind only a messy scene for the cleaners to deal with.

The setting sun sank lower, casting long, deep shadows.

The peak concurrent viewership for the live stream had broken five million. Even now, just watching the replay, the number of viewers was still considerable.

“About that bet,” Sachiko finally spoke, looking at Raven. “Are you going to enforce it?”

“Of course I am,” Raven said, its tone still restrained in front of Sachiko. “That’s the minimum punishment for him.”

“……”

Sachiko took another drag of her cigarette.

Raven’s wings were trembling slightly. The December wind blew over, ruffling the feathers it hadn’t yet had time to preen into order.

“All in all, he’s still too childish. If he wants to be me and Mizuho’s dog, then let him be. He’s practically the pride of Japan with its increasingly aging population! Woof woof woof woof!”

The last few barks were just Raven’s pure venting.

Sachiko held the cigarette in her mouth, watching the unruly Raven. “So? Remembering the past?”

“……”

“That kid, I can tell just by looking, is an extraordinary child,” Sachiko said, looking towards the setting sun and examining the ash left burning on the tip of her cigarette. “For an extraordinary person, you need extraordinary methods. You, as his coach, need to learn that well.”

Sachiko pinched her cigarette and blew away the ash still clinging to the stem.

Raven’s tone softened a little. “I just thought… to give him a little push. That way, he could fly.”

“Even if you’re this anxious and peck him, you can’t get back the time you lost before.”

“I know,” Raven shook its body, letting the December cold wind fluff up its feathers. “But from the moment he first agreed to fight Hifumi, he was already in over his head. That kind of proud fighting style is useless against Hifumi. He knows that himself.”

“That’s why he lost to Hifumi.”

“Yeah.”

Sachiko wasn’t in a hurry to take another puff. Instead, she curled her lips slightly. “When you get down to it, this whole Magical Girl fighting thing… back when Magical Girls started getting commercialized like this for entertainment, I was the first to oppose it. But there’s no helping it. Familiars and Magical Girls are already oversaturated. Those excess futures… we can’t just rely on Monsters. Really…”

Ah, forget it. Might as well keep smoking.

The wind was a bit cold, blowing the pale gray smoke into wisps. Raven tucked its head into its wing, curling into a black ball of fluff.

But it still kept one eye exposed, looking around as if steeling itself to say something.

“…That child I contracted with before—”

As soon as Raven started speaking, its exposed eye noticed Mizuho walking over from the distance, still wearing sunglasses.

Just as well. It hadn’t planned to finish anyway.

The setting sun was sinking below the curve of the arena’s dome. Her shadow stretched very long, extending from the bottom of the steps all the way to the front of the bench, completely enveloping Raven.

Mizuho’s makeup wasn’t smudged, and her hair was still styled as it had been in the morning. The day’s tension and waiting had left no visible trace on her.

“Where is he?” she asked, looking around.

“He left,” Sachiko gestured with her chin towards the distance. “That way.”

Mizuho looked in that direction, but could no longer see any sign of him.

Raven pulled its head out. “Congratulations. You’ve gained a dog.”

“Congratulations to you too, then.”

Mizuho sat down next to Sachiko.

“Any thoughts?” Sachiko asked.

Mizuho looked at Sachiko. “Thoughts about what?”

“You lost. Mine Mizuho lost to Kazama Hifumi.”

“Oh,” Mizuho turned her head away again. “I lost, so I lost. No particular thoughts.”

Sachiko put her cigarette back in her mouth. “Stubborn.”

“It’s the truth.”

Raven patted Mizuho with its wing. “What about the future? Regarding Yuan Qing.”

“…You’re not really going to treat him like a dog, are you?” Mizuho’s tone carried a hint of disgust and disbelief.

“Of course,” Raven said deliberately firmly, its emotions growing more agitated. “He agreed to it, so he has to do it! He said if he lost, he’d be a dog, so he has to be a dog! I’ll walk him by the neck every day, make him shake hands when I say so, make him lie down when I say so! I’ll do it! Woof woof woof woof!”

Sachiko held her cigarette, saying nothing, just watching Raven’s tantrum like she was watching a misbehaving child.

With her sunglasses on, Mizuho’s expression was unreadable, but it was probably similar to Sachiko’s.

“So what now?” Mizuho asked indifferently. “Was all your effort wasted?”

Raven stopped, then became somewhat awkwardly serious. “Well… not exactly. Even if the ending wasn’t ideal, for a rookie who’s only been in this line of work for about a month to fight Hifumi, who’s been training since childhood, to that level… that’s already pretty strong.”

“Isn’t it because you’re one of the strongest among Familiars?”

“That’s different,” Raven shook its head. “What I can give are only quantifiable boosts like strength and speed. At most, the skills have some power. But the one actually using them is still him.”

“Hmph… nice words.” The cigarette in Sachiko’s mouth was almost gone.

“It’s true!” Raven stomped a foot at Sachiko. “For a Familiar to remain unmoved in the face of such talent is no different from cutting off its own wrist.”

“Well, good luck then,” Sachiko tossed the cigarette butt into a nearby trash can, leaned back against the bench, and looked at the distant horizon. “This is what being a Magical Girl is all about, I suppose.”

The setting sun had burned the clouds into a mass of orange-red, heavy and deep. A few birds flew past in the distance, probably pigeons, or maybe crows. It was hard to tell.

Through her sunglasses, Mizuho gazed into the distance towards where Yuan Qing had left.

“……”

“……”

“Ah, forget it. I still have to go find him. See you later.”

After saying that, a burst of crow feathers exploded from around Raven’s body. By the time the wind blew away the veil of feathers, Raven had already teleported away, leaving only Mizuho and Sachiko on the bench.

The crow feathers that exploded when Raven teleported hadn’t fully landed yet, swirling in the December wind, drifting away one by one.

Mizuho watched those feathers, watched them float over the railing, drift towards the road outside the arena, and get scattered by the wind kicked up by a passing truck.

“About Yuan Qing… I hope you don’t mind.”

“Yeah, I won’t.”

“You know, he’s still too much of a spoiled child. But right now, there’s no one who can give him that affection anyway, so being spoiled is just being spoiled.”

“Yeah.”

Sachiko finished that cigarette. The wind grew colder. She turned up her collar, watching the last of the daylight sink below the horizon.

Lights began to come on in the distance, little by little, scattered across the city like flecks of gold foil.