***(At the beach)
"Hey... Since when did we have a beach underground..." (Kaorin)
"Underground? We travelled far Southeast on the surface for this place, are you still half asleep? " (Myuu)
"... Yeah, I guess. I was too excited and didn't catch much rest last night" (Kaorin)
The beach was dyed in a smooth purple, it slowly faded into a burning white as rays of dawn slowly converge onto its surface. The smell of salt flourished in Kaorin's nostrils, she didn't know how to react to it. It's been months since she had last been to the beach, much less become a magical girl. It was a nostalgic scent that waft around along with the waves, the crashing waves forming snow white foam and a clear lack of debris on the shore.
Her first thoughts were of a different nature, her mind filled with nostalgia naturally lead to it. Lead to her past memories. How she would occasionally play at a similar place, her mother who did not swim and laid on a laid back chair, her father who would step into the sea deeper than her and tease her about her fear of an untouchable sea ground. Well, at that time, she was a he though. It was much simpler, when he followed the trends and did whatever everyone else did. Though it felt quite empty from the lack of joy, it was still fulfilling in another way as he got to try out new things and experience youth in his own right.
These were the melancholic thoughts that never tend to abate, they gave rise to new thoughts or a chance to loop back around into a cycle. It took all of her attention until she finally took awareness of her surroundings. In the midst of that blurry and muddled thoughts, she saw the sun gradually rose like a sped up video of a plant's growth. But more so than anything else, she saw hope blocking the rays of the sun. Her brown pigtails had been untied and all of it arranged in a new ponytail. More of her face was exposed than usual, the scenery clicking in with how the light brilliantly illuminated her face.
'It's dazzling', Kaorin thought fervently. What she would never anticipate, was that a similar event was happening with Myuu currently. Myuu could do nothing about Kaorin's worn down expression, but when she stepped closer to the sea, somehow Kaorin had started staring with her mouth gaping open and eyes locking intently at her face. It was weird....very weird... But if Myuu managed to catch her attention and stop her from thinking about bad things, it was good enough.
She was thankful that she could stop Kaorin from making such a pained expression. It was best not to pry into such things, so light banter was necessary to lighten the mood. Her eyes narrowed into a relax state, and she smiled with her joy permeating and stretching her cheeks outwards. She couldn't contain herself for long, she was also excited. So she reminded that they both needed to change into their swimsuits.
"Ah! But you used to be a guy right? Is it okay to go into the changing room together?" (Myuu)
Usually Kaorin would the one who was flustered and asking this question, but to describe the state of Myuu's mind right now, it was akin to a piece of meat being boiled. The bubbles formed and popped, causing the liquid to gush vigorously, her thinking processes had become so scrambled that she failed to notice there was no changing room. This was an unknown patch of land that could have been a beach once, but any structures around were thoroughly destroyed. If anything, they looked more like ruins.
"Uhh... There are no changing rooms around... Also I got used to wearing them under. Well, I'm at least thankful that you came with me to buy the swimsuits yesterday. I'll wait before getting into the water" (Kaorin)
Brandishing a wide smile, Kaorin began to take off the casual attire she had worn to meet up with Myuu. She donned a simple and flexible shirt that had large stripes of black and white and some short jeans that barely reached halfway down her thighs. If Myuu were asked to describe it, her mind would first come up with the word 'tomboy'. Nevertheless, Myuu reflexively covered her eyes, her fingers spread wide and she could probably see as long as she opened her eyes, so it was quite pointless.
It didn't escape Kaorin's notice, especially the bright red strawberry cheeks partially covered by her palms. It was odd, the act itself made Kaorin feel something different. She could not describe it, but she felt happy just being near Myuu, so it was better to ignore it even if something weird awoken inside her.
"I'm done you know~ You should change too, I'll wait here but there's some rocks over there that you can hide behind.." (Kaorin)
Myuu opened her eyes, her conscious locked into a daze for a moment as she observed the specimen before her. 'Whoa~' was the only thing that escaped her lips for a few seconds, contrasting with the pin drop silence of the environment. The sound of the crashing waves blended into quietness under her view, for an instant she could not tear her sight away. Even if Kaorin claimed to have been a guy before she transformed into a magical girl, she was still seriously cute, such that she would even steal the gaze of some girls in the streets of the labyrinth.
Kaorin's hair had a mysteriously silky and glistening property, probably stemming from the fact she's always in her magical girl form. The magical particles must have overflowed and made it seem like her hair and skin was glowing a little under the rising sun, either that or the more probable explanation was occurring right now. Myuu was seeing things.
The centre of her fringe formed 3 gradual spikes like a main character would, though most magical girls look like main characters themselves, making it look quite normal in the labyrinth. The left side of her fringe was tied to her left while covered under a large lock of hair near the ear. The right side of her fringe was the same as the centre, ending in pointed locks, they swayed around with her movements. There was a strange extension that seemed like a crown made of hair, though it did not have the centre front part, it curved from a point on the frontal left side to around the back of her head and ended at a point on the right side front of her hair.
There were plenty of magical girls with a similar hair style, but what awed Myuu's sight wasn't her hair, it was her swim suit. They fit on top and didn't cover too much nor too less, the full black colour and grey translucent frills at the bottom spoke much about Kaorin's taste.
"Ah! I'm sorry for staring! I'll go change now..." (Myuu) Continuing to blush bright red, she ran off with her small bag in hand towards the rock that Kaorin pointed at.
After she was done changing, Myuu had on a similarly shaped swim suit, both of them wore a plain bikini set. Though Myuu chose different colours and chanced upon one with a design that she liked, it was a vibrant red but had white and violet patterns all over, it looked to be a dazzling colour palette competing with the sun in brilliance.
".... They should reinvent sun cream, hopefully I don't get too tanned from this..." (Kaorin)
"Haha~ I think Kaorin with a tan would still be nice, maybe even better~" (Myuu)
"Alright~... Let's just go play! Hopefully there'll be no sea monsters!" (Kaorin)
"Woooo! Last one in has to cook dinner!" (Myuu)
The ground under her foot exploded into thick clouds of grainy yellow, her figure vanishing in an instant. Naturally, Kaorin had been with her king enough foresee something like this, in the end they left the ground at the same moment, both vanishing without a trace to the common eye. They were seriously going at it, that they forgot the race was only to reach the water, not run over it to reach an imaginary finish line.
Feeling the wind rushing across her face, warming her cheeks and skin on her face, Kaorin had regained some vestige of her common sense and looked over to Myuu at some distance behind her. Their hair fluttered violently in the wind, the sheer velocity causing them to gain the deadlines of whips.
"Alright, let's just go back and play near the shore, this is dangerous.. I don't want to reach the Arctic and test my cold resistance...." (Kaorin)
"Fiiineee~" (Myuu)
***
In order to run across the surface of the water in the first place, we needed to reach a certain level of speed in order to propel ourselves forward before sinking. We were quite far out into the middle of the sea, so stopping now would be dangerous unless one of us could fly. I'm not sure if my control over the wind was enough to fish us out of the water and carry us to shore, but for now running back should be fine. Twisting my body to run at an angle not perpendicular to therm ground, I curved my running route to do a half loop in order to turn my direction 180 degrees.
I'm pretty sure that if I ran at a curved trajectory instead of a straight one, I could reach the shore faster but I didn't want to split from Myuu. She does the same and now we were at our original positions, just running in the opposite direction.
" !... Tch, can you feel that?"
"... Vaguely, yeah..." (Myuu)
There were enemies in the opposite direction... On our treasured break time... This time, there were 2 of them, they held a massive amount of magical particles compared to the previous monsters I fought, so they may be magical girls in the end. Hopefully things could be settled peacefully.
It wasn't long, maybe a minute or 2 and we've caught sight of the shimmering yellow sand.
"...!? Under!"
Shouting out a warning, I put my strength than usual into my strides and shot hgih into the air. There was an impossible large shadow below our running path, and I don't believe whales can shoot out from other us at such high speeds, I barely notice the attack before it hopped out of the water and back in to cause ripples of smashing waves. Myuu had heeded the warning and similarly jumped away with her decent physical prowess.
I hadn't check her status in a while since it wasn't necessary, but I guess she won't immediately be dead weight. Perhaps she may even be decent in combat and I was simply missing out on her demonstrations of ability.
As I flew into the air from my powered jump, an odd looking flying creature beat its wings vigorously as it reached a suitable altitude to glide, heading straight for me. It was now possible to conclude that they were both monsters and not magical girls, that was a rather important determinant as monsters are way easier to handle. Monsters may exhibit some intelligence here and there, but they are ultimately just that, monsters. Their attack patterns are way simpler, and the species encounter may be a repeat of a previous species, making cataloging possible and information on their weaknesses accessible.
Well, I don't actually know their weaknesses at the current moment though... For now, I sent some wind blades in the direction of the flying monster, the anti-magic residing in my nasty internal wounds are still there, but my body has roughly recovered half of its capabilities. I didn't bring the magical particle regulator nor the anti-magical particle disruptor, but I could roughly use half my strength anyway, so running is also an option. Plus, I got Myuu here to help me, and she has excellent combat ability. At least better than me at the moment, while I'm weakened.
The flying monster sensing that the wind blades were dangerous, dodged out of the way as I boxed it in a container of air. I'm not sure if it really needed to breathe to stay alive, but wind currents were presently being manipulated to smash into it with a force similar to a car. That is supposedly my limit, unless I were to compressed all of that into another vacuum blade which isn't necessary.
On the other hand, Myuu was already done with her monster. I could see its corpse floating in the distance in numerous fragments of skin and floating crystals. The match up must have been really bad for the monster if Myuu could finish it this fast. Her first skill was to replicate nature, her favourite move being the imitation of explosions in nature. Like when gases in a dead whale build up and explode the carcass with deadly pressure, she could recreate such things and animal body parts like tentacles. She must have restrained and immediately killed the sea monster.
Meanwhile, over here... I had to physically run on air with magic and punch through its flesh like a savage... A simple but effective move for this monster that was an expert in speed and evasion, so it had adequately soft flesh compared to other monsters. It worked, but why do I feel like I lose to Myuu in terms of how magical girls should look like...