Chapter 34: Sera-san is a Magical Girl, Too?
Beika Town.
The after-school rush was starting to die down.
"Seriously, the cream in those crepes yesterday was insane!" Sonoko said, trying to inject some life into the conversation. "But Sera, your matcha recommendation was a little..."
"Too sweet?" Masumi Sera finished for her with a grin, her eyes subtly glancing at Ran. She noticed that while Ran was smiling, it didn't quite reach her eyes. Something was weighing on her new friends, especially Ran, who seemed to drift off into her own world at times.
"It was okay," Ran said with a small nod. "I think the strawberry was more my style."
Did something bad happen to them recently? Sera wondered, but she didn't press. After a bit more small talk, the three of them waved goodbye at a crossroads.
Metropolitan Police Department, First Division.
A heavy atmosphere filled the office. Miwako Sato and Wataru Takagi stood before Inspector Megure, receiving their new assignment. On the desk was a map of Beika, a district on the outskirts circled in red.
"...in short, Officer Yamada from Division Three went to investigate the string of disappearances in that area yesterday. We lost his signal, and he hasn't been heard from since," the Inspector said, his voice grim. "This case is now yours. Be careful. If you encounter anything unusual, retreat immediately."
They accepted the assignment.
That evening.
The police car was parked at the edge of the designated area. It was an old, dilapidated neighborhood, the dim yellow streetlights barely pushing back the encroaching shadows.
"This is the place," Sato said, her grip tight on the steering wheel.
"Right behind you, Senpai!" Takagi replied, his hand resting nervously on his holstered pistol.
They got out and entered an alley. The deeper they went, the stranger things became. It was dead silent. No insects, no wind, not even the echo of their own heartbeats. The light from the streetlamps began to flicker erratically, the walls seeming to warp and twist. The air grew thick with the smell of old paper and dust, a scent of pure despair.
"Senpai... do you feel that?" Takagi's voice was tight. "It feels so... oppressive here."
"Yeah," Sato said, her hand on her gun. She froze. At the end of the alley, where a brick wall should have been, there now stood a rusty, monstrously distorted filing cabinet. Its drawers opened and closed, spewing a blizzard of blank forms.
"We've got a problem. Get ready—"
Her warning was cut short as the world dissolved around them. The alley walls became towering, teetering mountains of files and documents, stretching as far as the eye could see. The sky was replaced by a ceiling of flickering, red-lit security cameras, their lenses like a thousand unblinking eyes. The air was filled with the cacophony of clacking typewriters, ringing phones that were never answered, and the rustling of countless pages.
"What is this?! Did the archives come to life?!" Takagi yelled, stumbling backward.
The distorted filing cabinet burst open, and a horde of "paper familiars"—twisted, humanoid figures made of crumpled documents—shrieked and poured out, their only features the words "UNPROCESSED," "COLD CASE," and "MISSING" scrawled across their chests in red ink.
"Get back!" Sato yelled, shoving Takagi aside and opening fire. Her bullets tore through the paper bodies, but the red ink that served as their cores was unharmed. The shredded paper simply reformed. "Physical attacks are useless!"
They were back-to-back, fighting for their lives in a hell made of bureaucracy and despair. The paper familiars swarmed them, their attacks relentless. Takagi dodged a giant, snapping stapler while Sato kicked away a sentient roll of duct tape. They were hopelessly outmatched.
On the edge of the district, Masumi Sera was walking home when she stopped dead. A ripple of magical energy, faint but unmistakable, washed over her. It was a dark, oppressive aura, different from the Witches she had fought in England, but the same in its fundamental nature.
"A Witch's Labyrinth."
Her eyes hardened. She ducked into a dark alley. In a flash of golden light, her school uniform was replaced by a sleek, black-and-white combat suit. A half-mask covered her face, and a pair of glowing, high-tech fighting gloves materialized on her hands.
Magical Girl Masumi Sera was ready for battle. She shot forward, a blur of motion, and phased through the distorted wall of the Labyrinth.
Just as she disappeared, another figure rushed to the alley entrance. It was Ran. She had felt the Labyrinth's formation, too. And she had seen it—the flash of golden light, the combat suit. Sera's transformation.
"Sera-san...?!" Ran whispered, her eyes wide with shock. She's... a magical girl, too?!
The shock lasted only a second. The sound of gunfire from within the Labyrinth snapped her back to reality. In a flash of pink light, she transformed, donned her own mask, and plunged in after her new friend.
Inside, Sato and Takagi were on their last legs. Worse than the endless familiars was the psychological assault of the Labyrinth itself. The crushing weight of endless paperwork, the frustration of unsolved cases, the silent accusations of the victims' families... the negative emotions were seeping into their minds.
Suddenly, Sato's vision swam. The paper hell vanished, replaced by a familiar office—the EOD squad room. A man with curly hair was leaning against a desk, a cigarette in his mouth, a cocky grin on his face.
"Matsuda..." Sato whispered, her eyes losing focus.
"Yo, Sato," the phantom said. "Still staring at that pile of paperwork?"
The memory of that day seven years ago—the Ferris wheel, the final text message, the explosion—hit her like a physical blow. The grief she had buried for so long overwhelmed her, and she froze, lost in a sad fantasy woven from her own despair.
"Senpai! Snap out of it! It's not real!" Takagi yelled, but she couldn't hear him. Several paper familiars, the word "KIA" now emblazoned on their chests in blood-red ink, lunged at the defenseless Sato.
At that moment, a black-and-white figure shot past him.
"Hah!"
With a sharp cry, a fist encased in a black glove slammed into the familiars, the impact creating a visible shockwave that vaporized them into confetti.
It was Sera. She moved like a panther, her fists and feet a blur of motion, a perfect fusion of magic and martial arts. She precisely targeted the red ink cores of the paper familiars, destroying them with single, powerful strikes.
"Who... who are you?!" Takagi stammered, his mind reeling. Flat chest... must be a guy. But the voice... sounds like a girl? Is now really the time to be thinking about this?! I'm saved!