*
"Hey, you sure you want us to join forces together with you so soon?" (Gerald)
Generating conceptual darkness with her skill, she coats her right fist akin to a deadly gauntlet with well defined edges and a thickness that looked to triple its weight. Emanating off an ominous aura with a discrete 'vrrrr' hum sound, she adjusts her stance to ready her joints for fast reactive battle.
"You... If you wanted to kill me, that 1 hour break had plenty of opportunities for surprise attacks..."
"Tch" (Gerald) She clicks her tongue in disappointment, scowling away to the side at what was a rather obvious test. Though it still stands that I've been in life or death situations countless times so far, her brandishing a large concentration of power wouldn't really make any of us flinch. It was a weird disposition we all held, and sad to say but I guess we were all muscle brains.
I could already see the hopes and dreams of young men getting crushed as they get disillusioned from the brutality of these beautiful magical girls.
"I suppose we should release the transformation? I simply lose my hair colour but I'm practically the same. What about you guys, any reservations?" (Paridia)
She was calm and patient, exuding the aura of a reliable big sister despite her small stature. Perhaps her battle crazy personality was a switch that only came in during battle, it was odd to say something so obvious but the difference in her demeanour forced it into my thoughts.
"Uhh... Kaori here is a guy." (Myuu)
"Seriously?" (Gerald)
"Seriously." (Myuu)
She looks at them with a deadpan expression, as if saying 'first time?' while doing so. The other stare at her with exasperated expressions, mulling over if it was a joke or not. If they were friends who were familiar with us, they would know we wouldn't really be able to hold in our laughter if it was an actual joke. So they were still right to be suspicious of us.
"That would be an interesting sight, but all the more to her... His advantage. He would be harder to recognise than the rest of us who only have a hair colour change." (Paridia)
In the end, it really didn't matter. She skillfully brushes away the awkward atmosphere while bringing up the problem that the rest were facing. Between transforming and untransforming, the other 3 face a less drastic change of only changing their hair colour. While Myuu has the worst case of going from jett black to golden brown, both dull and normal colours that would get her instantly recognised in public, the other 2 didn't have it too good either. Going from black to slightly dark red for Gerald and black to bright pink for Paridia.
"It's okay, I've lived like this over a year. Using 'he' or 'she' doesn't matter."
"... That would be difficult, I wouldn't know to stick to which one..." (Paridia)
She stuck to the practicality of it, an understandably more urgent matter than which one I prefer. Well, I'd be fine as long as they stuck to he or she anyway, anything else would be too embarrassing or outlandish.
"... You're unexpectedly thoughtful for a young'un huh? How bout using whatever I am in the current moment, so I could stay disguised when I'm not transformed? "
" That is true... We wouldn't want your identity to get compromised, even if the other 3 of us have a bigger problem of looking identical... " (Paridia)
She brushes off the joke I cracked while Myuu lets a little giggle slip out. Fortunately we had our plain ordinary clothes with us, so as long as we hid our faces from now, it would be fine. We didn't a solution for that though and stores selling clothes were few and far between. As this was the outskirts of central, it mostly sold practical goods like various tools for various proffessions and some exotic food varieties. Thankfully that didn't exclude shops that sold materials like fabrics and clothes that could be used to tie around our faces.
It was a little uncomfortable and sweaty, especially how The Great Disaster fusing all the continents into one super continent made the weather unbearably hot. If not for some utility tools powered by magic, cancer from UV radiation would have gotten a sizable portion of the population. It looked like a thin layer of magic that reflected very effectively, though we couldn't notice it earlier due to Gerald's Oblivion Magia making the place too thick with magic to notice something more discrete.
With such an absurdly large mass of land being so far from a body of water, the continental effect was even more pronounced, making the air much more arid and dry. It seemed like the previously existing water bodies from before The Disaster had been crushed together from the edges. So now the source of water is mainly from ground water which was harder to extract and less sanitary than the previously well maintained reservoirs.
A solution to that was magical girls. Humanity has become very dependant on their existence due to the disaster. So higher level bodies of governments have been replaced. Not that most of the old politicans could survive either way. Some of them with extensive connections, like presidents could have made contracts with magical girl that protect them from the disaster.
It was a different world where many variations existed. The governor is a capable magical girl who could fight but is busy with work and still require magical girl body guards, or the governor is a witty human that has made contracts or connections with magical girls to protect themselves. That was why the supreme pinnacle of power resided at the top of the continental factions, God magical girls.
"I've been thinking, if she's as powerful as everyone else says, wouldn't the progenitor have a cult following? How do we deal with that?"
As if her interest had peaked, Gerald gives off a sly smile before answering. It seemed that she just wanted to show off her knowledge so she replied as quickly as possible before Paridia could utter in another sound.
" Her closest aides are just like us. I'm sure you can surmise the situation from that, they have intimate give and take relationships. To face her, we need to be as ruthless as her, I'm afraid they will be relentless otherwise." (Gerald)
"... Your ideals may get in the way. That would be what it means to fight her. You're not fighting a force of evil, you're fighting everything that exists out there. " (Paridia)
" Maybe in such circumstances, I would be grateful for having such fragile ideals. "
"..." (Myuu)
" So what'll we be eating today? I feel quite peckish. We've been walking for a while but there's been no restaurants in sight... " (Gerald)
Paridia turns away, as if she had seen something embarrassing. As Gerald had said, we've been walking for hours and didn't manage to find anything. There was a single place like a bar, but since it reminded us about that inn we went to, Myuu and I vehemently rejected it. It felt like it would be way too awkward to sit in there with the other 2 since the owner of that inn was one of their underlings. The story about his daughter was faked, in the end she was just having stomach ache and was resting in the room next to ours the whole time.
Paridia was also objecting to it since she wanted a place that looked safe for people our age to enter, and a bar isn't exactly one of the safest places. An open air restaurant would be nice too, but we haven't seen any of them for a while.
"Hey, do we really have to move while untransformed? It'd be much easier on our stamina if we simple transformed, we've had to take a lot of breaks now since Kaori has the resilience of a shut-in..." (Gerald)
".... I'm sorry for being so unfit. I stayed transformed for an entire year... "
" And why is that so? " (Gerald)
" Because it was comfortable... "
".... I'm surprised you were able to grow so strong like that, usually magical girls grow stronger faster when they are untransformed and train their normal body... The transformed state is peak physicality and magical conductivity for the present amount of muscle mass. Training in our normal bodies is simply far more effective as it's imperfect... " (Gerald)
".... I learned to manage. "
Her expression showed that she lost interest and wouldn't even bother asking me how I managed, or rather she was showing blatant interest in something else. She had spotted a restaurant further away. There weren't any air conditioners, since traditional ones or even newly invented magic ones were extremely expensive. If people were doing fairly well economically, it seemed that the culture was to buy a kettle or a cooking pot instead, as those would see far more uses than a luxury item like air conditioning.
We walked into the restaurant, observing that half the seats were empty and the waiter was resting. He was a slightly older guy with similar jett black hair and a small stubble formed below his chin. He was wearing a white and forest green apron, most likely a uniform for the restaurant as he saw us and stood up in a panic to welcome us in. I gave off a little wave since he didn't know where to look, seeing the 3 beauties around me.
"... Ah! Right this way... Sir?" (Waiter)
With a questioning look, he observed me up and down once we got closer to follow his escorting to a table.
"Is there a problem?"
Was I not dressed properly? I had a plain cloth shirt and pants on, though the pants was a little short for comfort, my shirt was large enough to reach slightly over the pockets and a piece of cloth was used to cover my mouth up. We were about to eat anyway, so I took off the cloth and that was how we got here.
"Ah! Nothing at all! Have you decided on your orders? Menus right there." (Waiter)
He changed mood in an instant, as if everything before didn't happen. Myuu stared daggers at him while the other 2 were giggling away. There were simple dishes like fried rice and rice with chicken or rice with pork. Typically rice dishes that stroked my Asian taste buds. While there weren't the specialty dishes I used to eat before the disaster, like pork ribs in bak kut teh, a type of soup, it was varied enough in the simpler dishes.
At least this told us, or really Myuu and I that the food industry recovered enough for rice to be a commodity. It wasn't like a ration offered in the labyrinth or the occasional bread and butter. The labyrinth had its own way of producing dairy products, but not noodles or rice. It typically imported some meat and vegetables, but not many magical girls even bothered to eat so not much was sent in. It was mostly for the meagre human population that resided there like Myuu's mother.
After a hearty meal, the waiter took away the plates while Gerald and Paridia gave knowing looks.
"When the cloth covered the bottom half of your face, he thought you were a girl, since you know a group with our ratio is a little weird." (Myuu)
She cut straight to the truth! It made sense given how he acted was weird. But it wasn't like it was the first time. Back before The Great Disaster, it unfortunately happened before... Back then in middle school I took a crush out on a 'date' with a friend group of someone I was close to... Even though he had planned for us to be left alone, it ended so embarrassingly... Ah... My dark past is coming back...
"Kaoru, come back! Don't leave me just yet! " (Myuu)
"Even though you did him in yourself?..." (Paridia)
Gerald nods in agreement to Paridia's observation. She could somewhat understand what I was going through since she gave me a thumbs up. I suppose it was surprisingly common to have this kind of dark past. Throwing all that melancholy away, we paid our bill and left. They didn't have any disposable cups, so we couldn't takeaway any drinks for our trip. Well, it was enjoyable while it lasted.
It was rather strange that we could calmly eat with those that we recently tried to kill. The sky was darkening to a dark blue twilight and the clouds were becoming more visible with their dark blueish black hue.
"We can transform soon. We can use the night as cover, but just in case try to suppress your presence. We don't have time to teach you huh, but I'm sure you've tried it before." (Paridia)
".... You don't have to out such a romantic fantasy like that... Of course I tried it... I thought it was cool... "
" Heheh... " (Paridia)
She releases her usual smug look as the sky darkened as if on cue. A few auras were released in the darkness, illuminating the vicinity for a second before the glow faded off back into the darkness.