Seeing this girl standing in front of her, Mahiru felt a headache coming on.
What was Riko Amanai even trying to pull here?
Mahiru still couldn't figure out why Riko was so obsessed with becoming a Magical Girl.
Had little Fushiguro and little Itadori talked her into it? Did she just think, wow, Magical Girls are so cool, and want to try it out for fun?
Or did she simply want power?
Riko had cried for a good while earlier, muttering things like "I can't do anything" and "I have no power" over and over.
But honestly, Mahiru thought that for someone like Riko, having no power and staying off the battlefield was actually a good thing.
"Honestly, I'd rather not get involved with you at all," Mahiru said, one hand on her hip, letting out a long sigh. "If Yaga hadn't asked me to help you, I'd have sent you right back where you came from by now."
"So that means you're willing to help, Miss Jogo?!" Riko lit up with delight.
"You'd better brace yourself," Mahiru said, crossing her arms. "Magical Girl training is brutal."
"Huh? Training?"
This was the first she'd heard that becoming a Magical Girl required training.
Still, Riko accepted it right away and asked Mahiru what kind of training she needed — she was ready to start immediately.
"Then let's begin," Mahiru said, sitting cross-legged on a bench, yawning as she pointed at the ground. "Start with five sets of push-ups, twenty each."
Riko: "...Huh?"
What was that supposed to mean?
She wanted her to train what, exactly?
Becoming a Magical Girl — even if she wasn't training magic, shouldn't she at least be training Cursed Techniques?
Seeing the shock plastered across Riko's face, Mahiru raised an eyebrow. "Hard to wrap your head around?"
The girl shook her head obediently. "It really is…"
Mahiru waved her over. "Come here."
She pulled out her magic wand and held it out to Riko.
The girl hesitated, then reached out and took it. The instant Mahiru let go, an immense weight surged through the wand, and Riko nearly toppled over from the force of it.
She reacted fast and let go immediately. The wand hit the ground with a boom, driving three inches into the concrete and cracking the pavement around it.
Riko's jaw dropped. She stared blankly at the wand buried in the ground, then looked up blankly at Mahiru.
"Th-this is…"
"It's a magic wand," Mahiru said, as if that were obvious.
"I know it's a magic wand!"
But wasn't a magic wand supposed to cast magic — bah, cast Cursed Techniques! Why was it so heavy?!
Earlier, when Riko had watched Mahiru send a Cursed Spirit flying with the wand, she'd assumed Cursed Energy was behind it. Turned out it was pure brute force!
"No, wait, you must have swapped the wand out! You hit me with this thing before, and it didn't weigh anything like this!"
"Are you kidding me? Why would I bother swapping props just for you?" Mahiru said, one hand on her hip. "I've simply—"
"—gotten complete control over my own strength, that's all. Making the heavy feel light is the first step to becoming a Magical Girl."
"Is physics-magic even magic?!" Riko shouted. "This is way too weird!"
Even as she ranted, the girl found herself looking Mahiru over again.
Mahiru had already dropped her Magical Girl form and was now wearing an appearance distinct from both "Mahiru" and "Miwa Ran."
She was short, slender, young-looking, and pretty — with especially thin arms that showed no hint of muscle. Riko simply couldn't imagine how someone with such a frail-looking body could lift a wand that heavy. It made no sense at all.
Did Magical Girl Keiko and Magical Girl Yuuko use the same kind of wand? Were those two impossibly young little girls really swinging weapons like that around?
That was terrifying!
If this truth ever got out, whole crowds of Magical Girl fans would probably have their illusions shattered.
"So? Becoming a Magical Girl requires training, but whether you actually train is entirely your choice," Mahiru said.
Mahiru genuinely wasn't lying.
She really hadn't swapped the wand.
The heavier it was, the more satisfying it felt to swing — one hit and a Cursed Spirit's skull would crack open, with a satisfying impact that made for great stress relief.
Making Riko do push-ups, though — that part was pure, deliberate spite.
As already established, Mahiru had zero interest in shaping Riko into anything. If anything, she found the whole business a nuisance.
She was still busy scheming how to kidnap Suguru Geto, so she'd tossed out a random task and a lie, hoping it would make Riko give up on her own.
But to Mahiru's surprise, after hearing all this, the girl hesitated for a moment — then actually gritted her teeth and agreed.
And Riko really did start grunting out push-ups on the field, counting each rep aloud. Her form was completely wrong, and she was drenched in sweat after just a few.
But Mahiru waited patiently, and sure enough, the frail girl actually managed, after quite a long while, to finish every single one.
The moment she finished, she collapsed flat on the ground, image be damned, not caring that sweat and dirt were smeared all over her.
"Ahh…" Riko felt like she was dying. "It hurts so bad…"
She'd overdone it badly enough to pull a muscle.
With a sigh, Mahiru crouched down and used an emitted Reverse Cursed Technique to heal her.
"If you can't do it, just don't," she said, smacking her lips.
But Riko showed unexpected resolve, gritting her teeth. "No — I have to get stronger…"
The sight of the girl, thoroughly wrecked yet still struggling to push through, actually moved Mahiru.
"Then go run ten more laps."
"Are you a demon?!"
Mahiru had already secretly contacted Kenjaku, telling her to quietly stir up some trouble and engineer a chance for Mahiru and Suguru Geto to head out on a mission together. So for this brief stretch of time, killing it babysitting this girl wasn't really a problem.
It had to be said, emitted Reverse Cursed Technique really was an impressive skill. The instant the girl collapsed, Mahiru would swoop in and give her a quick heal.
Then the girl would have to pull a miserable face and keep training.
After the laps, frog jumps.
After frog jumps, jump rope.
After jump rope, sit-ups.
After sit-ups, there were still ten sets of standard elementary-and-middle-school calisthenics.
For the whole afternoon, Mahiru did nothing but sit on the field, healing Riko with one hand while forcing her through drill after drill with the other.
To be fair, this kind of training actually worked pretty well — the Reverse Cursed Technique's healing could reset the body's condition almost instantly, so a single afternoon of special training packed in more progress than six ordinary days would.
The only problem was that it was utterly soul-crushing.
Yaga, passing by the field on his way home from work, spotted Riko from a distance — eyes utterly dead, mechanically going through the calisthenics — and for one horrified moment thought Mahiru had used some kind of dark technique to turn the girl into a puppet. He rushed over in alarm to check on her, and that was how our little Star Plasma Vessel finally escaped this hell.
"Come on, let's get dinner."
Back in the room, Riko watched, mouth hanging open, as Mahiru dumped a jumble of things into a bowl — chicken breast, protein powder, turmeric powder, and more — then pulverized it all with the magic wand.
"This is my special nutrition combo!" Mahiru said proudly, hands on her hips.
Riko pinched her nose and took a sip.
"Blegh—!"
So-called "rest," it turned out, was just walking out of one hell straight into another.
Was this really what being a Magical Girl was like?
Riko felt like she was going to be tormented into becoming an evil-organization executive before she ever even became a Magical Girl.
____
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