After school.
Yuki Kurokawa tossed her schoolbag onto the corner of her bed and collapsed backward, sinking face-up into the soft mattress.
She stared at the circular shadow cast by the ceiling light, her mind a chaotic jumble, unsure of what she was even thinking.
She felt completely out of sorts.
Yuki hugged her pillow to her chest and let out a sigh.
Most of the sound was muffled by the pillow, but Star-trail, lying at the foot of the bed, still twitched its ears, looked up at her briefly, and then rested its chin back on its paws.
She couldn't get a ticket...
She rolled over, remembering what Qiluo had said in the hallway at noon: “If I really let you support me, were you planning to hand over your bank card to me?”
She let out another sigh, even longer than the last.
At that moment, she had truly made up her mind. If Qiluo asked, she would hand over all her savings, pay her rent, buy her pineapple buns, and take care of every little detail of her life.
Yuki lay on her side, pulling Star-trail over from the foot of the bed and gently touching its ears.
Instead of instantly perking up like usual, Star-trail's ears only sluggishly rose halfway after a long moment.
“Have you been really tired lately?” Yuki looked down at Star-trail, pulling it a bit closer.
Before, it would wake her up every morning by brushing her face with its tail, sometimes intentionally pressing its cold nose against her cheek.
But over the past few days, she would wake up to find Star-trail fast asleep beside her pillow, undisturbed even by the rustle of her getting out of bed.
Star-trail buried its face deeper into her palm.
Its tail draped listlessly over her wrist, lacking its usual playfulness of wrapping around her fingers.
“Is it because of me? Did I consume too much of your mana, or—”
Star-trail nudged her palm, cutting her off.
“It's not because of you.” Its voice sounded lively enough, though its starlight had dimmed. “I've just been practicing a new spell lately, and it takes a lot out of me. I'll be fine in a few days, so don't worry.”
Yuki's brow furrowed slightly less, but she kept gently rubbing Star-trail's ears.
“What kind of spell? Why do you need to practice a new one?”
“A miracle spell.” Star-trail thought for a moment. “Just give me a few more days to recover my mana, and you'll get to see me flying in the sky again.”
Star-trail made it sound as though everything was perfectly fine.
And indeed, there was no danger.
Star-trail had simply been in power-saving mode lately because Qiluo was running low on energy.
Naturally, the mana allocated to Star-trail's clone had dwindled. Huddled next to Yuki's pillow, Star-trail had been sleeping up to twenty hours a day.
Its mana was so faint it was barely visible, and it couldn't even be bothered to lift the tip of its tail.
Fortunately, it looked like a silver-white fluffball anyway, so there wasn't much difference between it being asleep or awake.
The last time Qiluo had pushed herself this hard was back in her original world, cramming for final exams by burying herself in the archives for days and nights on end.
Qiluo withdrew her consciousness from Star-trail and refocused on the notebook in front of her.
She had made a fundamental error. She had been trying to simulate the mana signature of the deceased Contract Spirit, thinking that as long as the signal matched closely enough, the anchor would automatically recognize it.
But the reality was quite the opposite. The anchor wasn't a keycard; it was the final defense carved deep into Misa Tachibana's circuits at the last critical moment of that battle, using the very last of her strength.
It was waiting for her true partner, not an imposter.
And Star-trail wasn't her partner; it was a completely new entity. How could the anchor possibly recognize someone it had never seen before?
“It needs a push,” Qiluo muttered to herself, tapping her notebook with her pen cap. “I can't just fake a signal to trick it. I need to give it a nudge to make it come alive on its own.”
Star-trail was an independent Contract Spirit, and Misa Tachibana's anchor was waiting for its own partner.
But if she could reactivate the anchor, transitioning it from a dormant state to a semi-active state, it would naturally begin searching for a compatible Contract Spirit.
And Star-trail was the only Contract Spirit in this city capable of resonating with her.
No disguise was necessary; all it needed was a sufficiently powerful initial resonance.
It was like two magnets—unaware of each other's pull when far apart, but once they crossed a certain threshold of proximity, the attraction became irresistible.
Qiluo sketched a new circuit diagram on the paper.
Instead of disguising itself as Misa Tachibana's former partner, Star-trail's mana would send a resonance signal to the anchor as a brand-new partner.
The initial push had to be strong enough to rouse the anchor from its slumber. Once the resonance was established, the anchor would handle the rest of the matching process on its own.
However, the catch to this plan was that the mana consumption would be far greater.
Qiluo would need to inject a high concentration of mana all at once to activate the dormant anchor, but she also had to ensure it didn't exceed the capacity of Misa Tachibana's long-withered magic circuits.
It was like trying to force the flow of an entire river into a rusty old pipe. If the force was too great, the pipe would burst; if it was too weak, the sludge inside would never be cleared.
But...
Once this plan was set in motion, there would be no turning back.
The mana consumption would be immense, stretching even her limits, and it could not be interrupted. Otherwise, Misa Tachibana's circuits would completely collapse.
The more Qiluo thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. She stretched and cast a casual glance out the window at the calamity star, which permanently hung in the sky slightly to the west.
The Eye of the End's brightness had stabilized a bit more tonight, resembling a half-open eye staring down unhurriedly at every window in the city.
“What are you looking at!”
Qiluo grumbled in frustration at the Eye of the End.
If not for that thing, she wouldn't have to push herself so hard.
Then again, Qiluo still knew next to nothing about Store Owner Tachibana's former Contract Spirit.
If she had any information on its mana characteristics, or even video footage of it fighting alongside Misa Tachibana, it would help her precisely calibrate Star-trail's resonance frequency.
But the archives of retired Magical Girls should be in the Association's database, right?
Should she ask Mingyue for help?
Hiss—if Mingyue found out she was asking about another Magical Girl, would she get upset?
Don't tell me... she had to go to Meruru again?!
Qiluo tossed her pen onto the desk and leaned back in her chair, staring up at the ceiling.
Every time she dealt with Meruru, she ended up being led by the nose.
But she had no choice. The archives of retired Magical Girls were locked away in the Association's database, and Shizuru didn't have high enough clearance. The only person Qiluo knew who could access them legally was Meruru.
Qiluo picked up her phone and opened the encrypted communication channel. Meruru's avatar was a pink musical note, just as flashy as she was.
Their chat history was still stuck on her last request for information. Meruru's last message had been a smiley face with the note: “I had a lot of fun dancing that day~ Let's work together again next time~”
Qiluo had never replied to that message.
“Are you there? I have a favor to ask.”
Qiluo typed the words through gritted teeth.
Meruru was online, and she replied almost instantly: “How rare of you to reach out first! Let me guess~ Is it related to your secret investigation again?”
This was followed by a sticker of a chin-resting face.
“...I need to access the file of a retired Magical Girl. Her codename is White Night, and she retired twelve years ago due to injuries. I need her combat records, mana spectrum data, and Contract Spirit information. The more detailed, the better.”
Qiluo took a deep breath and hit send.
The typing indicator flickered a few times, disappeared, and then flickered again.
She waited for what felt like ages. Just as Qiluo thought Meruru was going to ignore her and began secretly resolving to bully her mercilessly later, a reply finally came.
Meruru wrote: “White Night's file is in the classified section. Even I can't access it directly. It requires a joint application signed by two S-Rank or higher Magical Girls, or the authorization token of a founding Magical Girl.”
Rate on N.U.
