"You're really going?" Kotomi questioned, frowning as she pulled open a can of beans that she fully intended to straight-up drink, "I mean, isn't this totally not your assignment, or whatever? Do I need to call Kaiba-chan?"
"No, you don't," Sayaka rolled her eyes as she finished packing things up into a bag, provisions and the like, "Kaiba-nee doesn't ever need to know that I'm doing this. I'm not breaking any rules, Blade is fine with me doing it, and you should be too, Tanako-chan. We both know that I'm more capable than any of those idiot men, if they run into any real danger then they're going to need me there."
Kotomi sighed, stretching one arm out above her head as she lifted the can of beans to her lips, but didn't consume any yet, talking over the edge of it, "You can say that, and I guess I appreciate what you're doing for Rukkun and all, but I still think you'd be better off staying here..."
"Since when do you worry about me?" Sayaka questioned, turning to look at Kotomi. She glared while her benefactor downed the beans.
Once Kotomi had finished chugging the entire can of beans, she answered, "I worry about you since what happened to him, okay? I look at you, and I see a kid who's in over her head. The others are adult men, and maybe you are better at combat than them, but they're more prepared to handle the consequences of their decisions, you get me?"
Sayaka scowled, "You're only what, four years older than me? You graduated the year before I got to high school. You can't say I'm a kid in over my head when you and Rukkun are hardly adults to begin with."
Kotomi groaned, tossing the now-empty can to the side and adjusting her mask back on now that she was no longer eating, "I can say that, and I am saying that. Plus, I may be twenty, but I ain't a magica. Chew on that, yeah? Don't lump me and Rukkun together when we both know I'm better at making life-altering decisions than he is."
 |
| Sayaka Yamaguchi (Summer) |
Kotomi stood up and reached out, grabbing Sayaka's knapsack from behind, "Maybe so, but you know what has happened to people in the top 30? Mysterious, unsolvable disappearances. So forgive me for not exactly having faith in you based on your ranking."
Sayaka spun back around, snapping, "Stop acting like you understand! You're not a magical girl, and you just live your life free and easy from one job to the next. You're not in any position of authority over me, and as grateful as I am for it, I never needed your pity! Let me be."
"...Fine," Kotomi sighed, releasing her grip on the backpack to turn away, looking at the ground with a defeated look, "You're right. I don't understand, and I never will. Just be careful, okay? Please be careful. Or as careful as you can be. I don't want to be the one to explain to Kaiba-chan that I let you go get yourself killed, okay?"
Sayaka laughed, shaking her head, "I won't get killed. You won't have to tell Kaiba-nee anything."
"Have fun storming the castle," Kotomi gave her final, good-natured offer of a goodbye, and Sayaka nodded before she transformed, leaping up onto a nearby building to make her way towards the train station that she and the rest were departing from. The train trip to Nagasaki prefecture from Tokyo was a long one with a number of transfers, but it was the only option for a group of five magica. One magica could get through airport security with some extra measures, but a whole group would definitely be denied flight on the same plane. Too risky.
Sayaka arrived at the train station in good time, and she was the second of their group to arrive. She landed nearby, transformed back, and walked the rest of the way. Upon arrival, she spotted Tsukune, who was standing there beside a woman who she recognized, oddly enough. She wasn't expecting to recognize that woman, but she did, and she approached the pair of them, hands clasped behind her back, "Shirato-san! I didn't know that you knew Madara-kun."
"Hm?" Kyoko looked down, being a good deal taller than Sayaka, then offered her a smile which seemed quite forced, "Oh, Shinku-chan. It's a pleasure. I can't say I expected to see you here!"
Sayaka froze, then tilted her head to the side, "Oh, I don't use that name anymore. Didn't you hear when I was on the list of survivors? My real family name is Yamaguchi. Anyway, Madara-kun and I met a few months ago. How do you know each other?"
Kyoko shrugged, "After Korekara, I was kind of homeless. I mean, we all were. Headmaster Kira didn't give a damn about us survivors after that happened... I decided I needed a roommate, and he was on the streets too, so I decided if I was going to claw my way out of Hell, I may as well be kind enough to bring somebody with me," She laughed a little, "Don't worry, just because he's a homeless guy several years older than me doesn't mean he's doing perverted things to me!"
Sayaka glanced around, then smirked, "Honestly, Shirato-san, I would worry about it the other way around. Last I checked, Madara-kun is a very nonthreatening adult man. You, on the other hand, are a very threatening adult woman," She turned to Tsukune, her tone still joking but with a slightly concerned undertone, "Madara-kun, show me on the doll where Boss Idol Kyoko touched you."
"She leaves me alone, Red. Don't worry," Tsukune crossed his arms over his chest, looking between them, "I can't say that for most people she meets. A real man-eater, this one, but I'm safe. Anyway, I hope you don't mind, she wanted to visit another city along our way, I couldn't be bothered to remember which one, so she's getting on the same train as us."
Sayaka adjusted her backpack, "Why would I mind? It's not like it matters to me. I don't care about the five of us as a unit at all, it'd be Moron-sensei that you'd really have to run it by. He's the one who keeps thinking we're a team. Him and Rukkun, anyway."
"Right," Tsukune mumbled, shifting between his feet.
Kyoko paused a beat, then looked between the two of them, coming to a conclusion, "Oh! I get it. Okay, so that's what this is about. Jesus Christ, there's five of you in this city? I can't decide if that number is absurdly low or absurdly high. I kind of thought that Tokyo was more of a hide of scum and villainy, but I also can't say I thought there were that many of you."
"Don't talk so loud about it, we're in public," Tsukune chided Kyoko, and she actually took a step back physically, seeming to signal her backing down socially as well as her posture turned to a more relaxed one, "And stop acting like I'm the only one who's not a criminal."
"Well..." Kyoko brought up, adjusting her hat, "Yamaguchi-chan is a criminal. A career criminal. But I'll take you at your word."
"Only one of the others besides her is a criminal. Kano-kun and Wang-kun are perfectly fine people who just also happen to be... You know?" Tsukune was really not doing a great job of socializing with the woman who he shared an apartment with. Conversation wasn't a normal thing between them. Luckily, he would soon be rescued from the situation when one of the aformentioned non-criminals arrived.
"Hello there," Zhou greeted them, sleepily. He didn't ever seem to be rested. He had luggage too, a suitcase which he rolled up onto the train platform and immediately sat down on. He was also making quite the fashion statement; he was wearing a flannel and a t-shirt, and normal shoes, but those were paired with pajama pants and a travel pillow worn like a necklace, "Tsukkun. Yamaguchi-sama."
"Those are indeed our names," Sayaka noted, turning to him with a scrutinous look, eyebrows raised, "We're going on a train, you know. The travel pillow really necessary?"
Zhou looked up at the ceiling of the train station, kicking his legs out in front of himself. He was short enough that he could do that when seated on a rollerbag, though the intelligence of the action seemed a little lacking, "There's a false culture associating travel pillows with air travel specifically. Travel, implies that they are perfectly acceptable for any and all uses as long as one is moving from one location to another. It isn't as if nobody ever wants to sleep through a train trip."
"How can we rely on you if you intend to sleep through a train we are leaving on in the mid-morning?" Sayaka demanded, putting her hands on her hips.
Tsukune stepped forward, "I think, maybe, it means we can rely on him more. If he sleeps a lot now, then he'll be awake during any fights we might get ourselves into, right?"
"Precisely," Zhou pointed at Tsukune, then laughed a bit, "Though I must admit, even I find it annoying how often I'm resting these days. It doesn't make much sense, I used to be capable of function on only four hours a night, but ever since I made that contract, I just need to sleep all of the time. I think it's because my intention is to rescue Mayu. Her favorite thing to do was sleep, so now that's bleeding onto me. I guess that means my fixation is a little unhealthy..."
"Yeah, whatever. Unhealthy fixations are commonplace these days. We got a stalking problem in the country," Sayaka waved it off, "So it's not so weird that you want to save your dead sister. That's the plot of at least four animes, anyway, so we can let it slide."
"Jeeze, Ruka-san, I told you that we'd be late..." The three who were already at the station turned to see the approach of their final two members, who seemed to have decided to collaborate their travel given that they lived in the same building.
"Kyosuke-san," Yuuri rolled his eyes as he checked the time on his phone, trailing behind, "We're not late. Everyone else was just early. Even the human embodiment of oversleeping, somehow."
"Hello," Kyoko waved, "I'm Madara-kun's girlfriend."
"No she's not. My girlfriend is the video-game recreation of Maki-chan I made using Ambition's spectacular DGF app," Tsukune corrected her in a deadpan, moving to stand in front of her, "This is my roommate. She's staying on the line at our first transfer, so none of us have to put up with her for very long."
"Sometimes I forget how much of a NEET you are," Sayaka noted, "Then you say shit like that and I remember why I didn't want to work with you in the first place."
"Girls, girls, you're both pretty," Yuuri joked, trying to diffuse the situation, but he somehow only made it worse, in that Tsukune turned away and ran off to stare at the map of the different train lines as if it was a fascinating book. He looked over at that whole situation with scrutiny before looking back to the others who were still present, "Uh... What'd I say?"
Zhou gave an exaggerated shrug, "Beats the fuck outta me!"
"Oh my God, are you telling me, none of you know? Holy shit" Kyoko burst out laughing, bending over herself in her raucous cackling, "How don't you know? I've seen his outfit, you know! It's a spandex catsuit, and like, this group that has at least two obviously gay men didn't even notice that what should, y'know, be an extra clear package in a catsuit... Isn't?" She turned to Yuuri with a lopsided grin, "Wow, you were just the biggest asshole!"
"Oh, I see," Zhou tilted his head to the side, "Perhaps I am mistaken, seeing as I haven't known him for an especially long time, but it has been long enough that I can honestly say I didn't take him for the type. Being that, he is such a nihilist I honestly doubted he would have the capacity to care enough about gender dysphoria to act on it. Clearly I was mistaken."
"Obviously," Kyoko groaned.
"Shit," Yuuri grimaced, still staring over at Tsukune, "Not just caring, caring well enough that none of us could even tell. And I was just, accidentally, the biggest asshole. The has-been's right."
"...So you do recognize me," Kyoko froze, glaring at him, "Doesn't matter, you're still worse right now."
"I'm not going to refute that," Yuuri groaned.
Kanoshi looked between everybody, then held his arms close to himself as he wandered over to Tsukune, "Hey, Tsukki. You know that Ruka-san didn't mean anything, right? He was quoting a movie to try and get you to stop fighting. Like a joke."
Tsukune turned to Kanoshi, his one visible eye narrowed and clearly burning with anger, though his voice didn't reflect it at all, "I know he didn't mean anything by it, that doesn't magically make it that I'm not filled with a vicious fury."
"Tsukki-" Kanoshi started again, only to be cut off.
"That's not how this works, Kano-kun. I'm not mad at Ruka-san, but I am mad, and I need some time to cool down, okay? I'm sick of this trend of people insulting me without knowing what the Hell they're even saying," He scoffed, "You calling me a mag, Ruka-san calling me a girl. I'm really goddamn tired of not being able to even be mad at anyone because it's always an accident. If someone was being an asshole on purpose, I could just set them on fire."
"I... I don't think that's a good solution," Kanoshi mumbled.
Tsukune rolled his eye, "Look, I'd put them out before any permanent damage was done. Just ,let them experience the feeling of being burned alive for a few seconds. I can't do that to people who don't mean anything by it, though."
"I can't say I understand your philosophy," Kanoshi shrugged, "But please try not to set anyone on fire on the train at least, okay? I understand if you'd rather sit alone. We've already discussed tactics, so it's not important that we all stay together during the travel."
"Yeah, I know," Tsukune nodded, then walked onto the train as it pulled up. Kanoshi regrouped with the others, and they got onto an entirely different car from Tsukune. Kyoko slid in next to Sayaka, with her being the only other magica that she actually knew. Kanoshi sat beside Yuuri, and Zhou sat across the aisle from them and promptly laid his head down on the table in front of himself. Long-distance trains tended to have those when the subway cars usually didn't.
"So, I got a question," Kyoko started, leaning forward with one hand twirling her hair, "While you hunks are off doing whatever it is you're leaving for, what's Tokyo gonna do if any of those monster things show up? Aren't you leaving the city totally unprotected?"
"We aren't," Yuuri explained, drumming his fingers against the table, "A few others are covering for us. Last I heard, it was Fukushima being sent to Tokyo. She can get backup from nearby cities if anything really bad shows up, too."
"What sort of name is that? That's distasteful," Kyoko questioned, then shifted in her seat with a smile, "Oh, let me guess her power! Fukushima must have either earthquake or tsunami powers, right?"
"Close," Zhou answered without lifting his head, "Fukushima can control any water she can visually see, so I guess she could cause a tsunami, explaining the name."
"Wow, okay," Kyoko picked at her nails, "Anyone know who she really is? I'd like to give her my number."
"She's too old for you," Sayaka answered, tilting her head to the side, "I don't think you ever met her in your brief time at Korekara, actually. Her name's Kaiba Rokujo. She's about eleven years older than me, and my only Onee-san back home."
Kyoko paused, took a slow blink, then stared at Sayaka, "How come your last name is the syndicate's, and hers isn't? That doesn't make much sense."
"I was an orphan, I didn't have a last name. I became Yamaguchi when I was adopted," Sayaka explained, shifting, "Kaiba-nee was caught in crossfire. Her older brother who she was living with picked a fight with the mob, that obviously didn't end well, and she was given the choice to go back to her parents or join. She chose to join."
"Well, that makes sense," Kyoko nodded, then looked across the table, "Hey, what are your tragic backstories, huh? Why did you become magical boys?" She then leaned over to shout, "You too, Sleepyhead!"
"My sister died at Korekara, now let me rest," Zhou answered, and that was a satisfactory response.
"I was a middle school teacher..." Kanoshi started to explain.
"Oh, you were at Aoba Public Middle, huh?" Kyoko concluded before he'd even finished, then stretched an arm over the back of her seat, "I heard things about that school. All sorts of things. I don't blame you for freaking out after the sort of stuff I've heard goes down there!"
"...Right," Kanoshi nodded, turning to look out the window, "Yeah, that's true. Actually, what made me become a magical boy was when I got told I'd be fired at the end of the school year. Parents were making false correlations between my class and bad things happening to their kids. Several Korekara victims had been my students before, and those kids who disappeared a few years ago, and with the murders earlier this year... It was too much, I guess."
"It was bullshit, is what it was," Yuuri jumped to his defense, glowering, "With Kyosuke-san gone, there isn't a single good teacher left at that school."
"Oh, goody," Kyoko giggled, leaning in Yuuri's direction now, "Does that have anything to do with your tragic backstory, hot stuff?"
Yuuri rolled his eyes, "I'd appreciate if you didn't call me hot stuff, but yeah, sure, fine. I'm trouble. I smoke, and I get in fights, and I'm a disaster, okay? I'm the one person here who actually fits the profile of who you'd expect to become a magical boy, and that's the extent of what I'll tell you because that's the extent anyone who meets me generally figures out."
Kyoko blinked a few times, then raised her eyebrows, "Huh, so you don't like pretty girls calling you flirty nicknames?"
"I don't like pretty girls, period," Yuuri responded, "Well, I'm sure you're delightful as a friend. Or not, since Madara-kun doesn't seem to like you much."
"Weird, I could have sworn that out of all of you lot, you'd be the most likely one to be straight. Or at the very least, bi," Kyoko glanced over to Zhou, "Hey you! Mister Sandman! What's your sexual orientation?"
"Tired," Zhou answered with a grumble, sitting back up, "Have enough respect to let me sleep, okay? Anyway, I used to be bisexual, I guess. I haven't thought about it in a while. I've had crushes, and in college I dated a few different people, but I haven't really cared about that sort of thing for a whi- And there you go," Zhou noticed as Kyoko pushed her way past Sayaka, coming to sit down next to him.
"I've always wondered what it would be like to date a magica," Kyoko pressed up against him, "Well, for as long as magica have existed, anyway. I've had sex with people on drugs before and that was a hoot, so I bet that magic would be even cooler."
"I don't have time for dating right now," Zhou leaned away from her, just bored by her seduction attempts, "I need to spend all my time sleeping, working, and fighting monsters. That's a very full schedule."
"You have the same job as me! I have plenty of free time," Kyoko protested, "I mean, I've seen you around. I fill in on guitar! You know two instruments, right? Piano and violin? You must see more work than me, but that's still not a huge load."
"I sleep at least fourteen hours a day, and that's when I'm especially busy. It's usually much more," Zhou explained with a laugh, "It's a pain, actually, I think it's because I'm working so hard for Mayu. I mean, I'd be glad to try going on a date with you once this is all sorted out, but I doubt I'd make for a good dinner conversation partner if I just wanted to go home and sleep the whole time."
"That's good enough for me," Kyoko decided.
"So, Rukkun," Sayaka started, ignoring the one-sided conversation that Kyoko took up with Zhou as he drifted off again, "Your arm. How's it healing up? Anything else weird happen with it?"
Yuuri held up his arm, bandage still wrapped around where his mark was, "It's fine. Healing up no problem, it wasn't a deep cut or anything. The scab fell off yesterday, but I'm keeping it bandaged just in case until I need to transform. Oh One said that the only way it would get worse would be if I re-injured it, or if I tried to transform before the injury was fully healed. Apparently the only time the mark actually gets used is while transforming to magica from human."
"That's good to know," Sayaka nodded, leaning forward, "So if it gets hit in battle, we can technically keep fighting. We can finish off the fight, anyway, assuming we can get through the pain. Rukkun, what did you say it felt like again?"
"It felt like every inch of my body all at once was being stabbed by seven simultaneous knives, or you know, something in that neighborhood," He answered, rubbing his fingers against the edge of the bandage, "I don't think anyone would be in a position to continue fighting a monster after experiencing it for even a moment."
"I would be," Sayaka rested her chin in one hand, elbow on the table. "Kyosuke-kun. Wouldn't you be? Wouldn't you fight through the pain for the sake of the rest of us, if you were injured during a really important battle?"
Kanoshi looked over to her, having been invited into the conversation, and shrugged, "I'd definitely try, but I mean, I could probably heal it if it happened during battle. In order to heal a wound, I need to block a hit with the same level of intent as the one that inflicted it. I couldn't heal Ruka-san's because there was no way to recreate his intentions, but if it were a monster, I'd just have to block the next hit. So I guess it would just be the moment, and then I'd fix it, so yeah. Roundabout, but in the end I would."
"I guess that's true," Sayaka sighed, "Well, it makes sense that I'm the only one strong enough to fight through it without something like that, but it doesn't exactly bode well. You do realize we're investigating strange monster behaviors? We have no idea the type of battles we might end up in once we reach Nagasaki."
"Well," Yuuri shifted in his seat, "That's true, but I trust in everyone's abilities. Plus, I'm getting close to a breakthrough on smokes, I might be able to make a stronger acid that actually has an effect on the monsters, but not on magica or civilians. It'll take more magic than creating smoke usually does, but I'm sure it would be helpful!"
"Good," Sayaka laughed, "You always were the most useless in combat, for real. I mean, you're good for what you are, but that baby revolver..."
"Okay, yes, my weapon isn't the best," Yuuri chuckled, shaking his head, "But I'm a good shot, and I'm working to improve upon my magic. I'm just as capable as the rest of you."
"Yeah, that's true," Sayaka agreed, then giggled again, "I'm only teasing, Rukkun! Besides, you're like, super effective against humans and other magica. Kyosuke-kun told me all about what you did to Lionhardt, which sounds way more impressive than anything I've seen you pull off against a monster."
"It wasn't that impressive. I just subdued him," Yuuri shook his head, "We barely engaged, really."
"That's what's impressive about it!" Sayaka insisted, leaning across the table with an enthusiastic smile, "The fact that you were able to finish off the fight so quickly, without doing much at all, is actually really great. That does take skill. Sometimes combat doesn't hinge on holding your own throughout, but just one move to prevent a battle before it happens. That was the sort of thing I had to do all the time when I was a human, and I still do it when I can."
"Well... Thanks?" Yuuri shrugged, "Doesn't feel that way to me, but I guess that's because the type of fights I tend to get into on a human level usually have more honor than that in question. Like, catching somebody by surprise and ending the fight before it's began is widely regarded as playing dirty. If anyone catches you fighting like that, you'll have more to deal with than the original one-v-one you avoided."
Sayaka rolled her eyes, "Well, street fighting is different, I guess. That's like when two cats get in a fight over some roadkill that they found..." She froze, then sighed, "Oh, good grief. Tanako-chan's rubbing off on me."
"What do you mean?" Kanoshi questioned, furrowing his brow.
"Oh, right," Yuuri turned to Kanoshi to explain, "Kotomi-chan has a thing for cats. She feeds a lot of strays, and even built a cat playground in a storage unit for the particularly friendly ones. It's not just her mask design that's cat themed, she really is just... Like that."
"She's my favorite human!" Another voice butted in, and Sayaka looked down to see that Blade had decided to appear in the seat which had previously been occupied by Kyoko, "I don't think she'd make a very good magical girl, since she doesn't care about much and she's already witnessed its horrors firsthand, but she is a great human indeed!"
"Glad to see you could join us, Blade," Sayaka noted, looking down at it, "Weren't you busy with Ribbon Green in San Francisco?"
"I was, but how could I leave my girl to go off into dangerous and trauma-linked territory all on her own?" Blade questioned, jumping up onto the table, "Misa is going to be fine while I'm here. She's really climbing up those rankings! She might surpass you soon, you know. Not that that will change anything. You're always going to be number one in my book! I just can't resist your tsundere charms!"
"...Are any of your distributors going to be joining us?" Sayaka questioned of the magical boys across from her, ignoring Blade's comments about the odd friendship that the two of them shared.
"Yes," Yuuri nodded, scratching his neck, "Oh One went with SC to check up on Uamake and Graveyard in Hawaii, but Blem is going to meet us in Nagasaki, and Must Pope will probably join us at one of our transfer stops. I forget which one."
"I wonder if they'll manage to recruit anybody new while they're at it," Blade commented, looking up at the ceiling, "Those islands could use some extra protection; not that I'm doubting Uamake, but you have to admit, she's got to be tired handling an entire island chain all on her own. Any monsters that form in the nearby oceans will be going there, too."
"Since when do you encourage Oh One's posse?" Sayaka questioned, glaring at the shitty cat with a click of her tongue, "I thought you had a bitter rivalry."
"Come on, your info's outdated!" Blade protested, "That bitter rivalry was just before Kanoshi Kyosuke became a magical boy. Since then, I've contracted Ribbon Green and Ribbon Velvet! Both of them are spectacular, and I think Misa could even reach the top ten! And Velvet's just the sort of magical girl we needed at a time like this, you know. Rivalries are silly to have when we're all in a state of confusion and crisis."
"Are you really capable of confusion and crisis?" Yuuri asked, leaning towards the distributor, "I mean, do you have a full range of emotions like humans have?"
"A full range and beyond," Blade answered, "But humans could never understand that. In any case, we're all very confused, and very in crisis. Of course we would be, if you think about it. We've never encountered a mysterious disappearance like these before, let alone the number of them. Except for Skorgles, who seems to have dropped its compassion somewhere along the line, of course we'd set aside our differences to solve the mystery."
Kanoshi joined the conversation, "You said that Velvet's the type of magical girl needed at a time like this. What does that mean? Does she have a special power?"
"Yes, bingo," Blade nodded, looking to Kanoshi as it answered, "Actually, it's useless in combat. She's making a website, though. She's clairvoyant towards monsters. Being, she can tell when, where, and what level monsters are going to spawn. We're working with a human friend of hers to create an easy web interface to RSVP to certain battles, sorted by level, area, and of course, calendar date and time of day. After that first level eight, and with magic's best all missing, it's a much-needed creation."
Yuuri blinked a few times, "Hey, that's exactly what I've been all freaked out about! It took so much work from such powerful magica to take down that first one. Fizzy Pop and Horace were both involved, and they're both gone. I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to take down something so strong without them..."
"Everyone's getting better every day, and we're still making new magica," Blade answered, swishing its tail, "And with Velvet giving everyone a chance to know about it and plan, that makes it easier. The magica of sixteen different distributors can involve themselves in battle with a level eight and still get rewards, and if a bunch of magica all know, for example, that a level eight is spawning in Brazil in four months, they can plan around that. Quantity over quality can still save the day."
"That's a good point," Yuuri agreed, then pulled his phone from his pocket, frowning as he muttered at it, "Jesus Christ, Yamada. I can't cover for your shift, I got this time off for a reason and that reason was not so that I'd be free to relieve your lazy ass of Saturday evening duty..."
"I should get a job," Sayaka noted, looking up at the ceiling wistfully, "I'd love to be able to angrily mutter out loud at unfortunate texts from my coworkers."
"Very funny," Yuuri rolled his eyes as he tapped away at his phone with his thumbs, giving back a response that was a somewhat more polite version of the gripes he had.
Sayaka paused, then tilted her head to the side, "Oh, no, I'm being serious. I don't get hired for any hit jobs these days, so it gets a little... boring. Not that I don't love living with Tanako-chan, but she won't take me along on transport jobs or anything, so I don't have anything to fill up my days," She pouted as she leaned on the table again, "Plus, I'm still just sixteen. I went to school in the first place to try and experience normal childhood, but that didn't pan out. Part time jobs are another normal part of growing up, though, so maybe I should experience it."
"If you have the opportunity to not work a part time job, I would absolutely not recommend that you do," Yuuri shook his head with a bitter chuckle, "Anyone who never has to spend a single moment in customer service is somebody whose life should be the envy of everybody."
"Heh," Sayaka laughed, then looked up as she felt the train stopping. She pulled out a small notebook from her pocket, then returned it as she stood up, shifting her bag, "Sorry Blade, no room for you in here, you'll have to walk across the station. This is our first transfer. After this, we have about a five-hour stretch on the same train before we need to transfer a few more times on some shorter distances," The others followed her, and she tapped Zhou as she passed by him to get his attention. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and joined his fellow magical boys in following her, "I hope that Madara-kun knows this is where we're transferring..."
"Don't worry, he'll catch up to us," Kanoshi noted with a slight, quiet laugh, "Tsukki's good like that. He's very reliable. He's the only person I've ever met who has never had his LP sitting on full."
Sayaka shook her head with a groan, "As if I'd know what that means. Whatever, I'll take you at your word."
No comments:
Post a Comment