"Where are you?! Show yourself!" Nozomi demanded furiously after stepping out of Mukarramma's barrier and searching for them. Everyone else did the same as they exited the barrier. Rea's humanity, still the one in control of Rea's body, was the last one to get out.
When Rea's other half exited the barrier, she had to do a double take. For one, the barrier she had just exited simply vanished without warning. For two, all the blood stains on Nozomi's and Yoshino's clothes were gone. One more question to add to the pile, I suppose. Hey, She addressed Rea. Thanks for the heads up. I wouldn't know they were planning to blind us if you hadn't warned me in time.
Yeah, sure, whatever. Can I have my body now? Rea was having none of it and went straight to the point.
Rea's humanity sighed. Although she had seen it coming, it didn't sting much less. A deal is a deal, I suppose. Let me just ask them a few things and... She took a deep breath. Explain others.
"Hey!" Rea's other half called for everyone's attention.
When they turned their eyes to her, she continued. "Is it over? Is it safe for me to go home now?"
Rudabaugh looked around for a few seconds. "Probably, yeah." The cowboy moved his regained arm around. Rea's humanity needed another double take as she just now noticed Rudabaugh had his arm back without fanfare. "If having my arm back isn't confirmation enough that the fight has ended, I don't know what is."
"B-but they got away! Shouldn't we pursue them so they don't harm anyone else?" Nozomi asked in confusion.
Outsider raised a hand to his chin in thought. "Hmm, Rea, I couldn't see much due to the sudden brightness blinding me, but I did catch you using your magic in that darkspawn's direction." The masked man tilted his head in an odd way that made both Rea's sides recoil a little. "Did you manage to get them?"
Rea's humanity immediately nodded. "Yes, I managed to cover my eyes in time and burn one of her arms to dust with my magic...or at least I think that was her arm? I was kind of just aiming it in her general direction, hoping for the best. I burned a good part of her body. I can guarantee that at least."
"So they are still out there..." Seiza trailed off as he looked down on the ground.
"Are they though?"
Everyone turned to Yoshino who seemed to have calmed down and started thinking about something. If Rea's humanity had to guess from the silence, it followed.
"Professor, how far would they be able to get without a whole arm?" Yoshino asked Rudabaugh, clearly trying to confirm something.
"Hmm, not far. The intense pain they would surely experience after losing a whole limb would make them fall on the floor in pain. That's not accounting for the fact they would soon succumb to starvation due to expending all their dark energy on attempting to keep their wounds from getting worse." Rudabaugh turned to face Rea's humanity. "If Mukarramma is really missing her whole arm...they are most likely gone from this world. Or about to be as we speak."
Nozomi breathed a sigh of relief as she rested her back on the left side of the alleyway's wall. Some of the stress she had been accumulating left her body as she calmed down. "I...see..."
Rea's human half couldn't help but frown at the way Nozomi said that. It truly sounded relieved, but also kind of disappointed. She chose, in the end, to not push the issue as she had things to explain, groceries to deliver, a promise to keep, and most importantly, she wasn't sure Nozomi would appreciate her second attempt to help considering how badly the masked magical girl reacted to the first. "Hey, uh, I think...something needs to be cleared up here."
When Seiza raised his head, Rea's humanity elaborated. "How can I explain it..." She scratched the back of her neck. "I'm...not exactly the one you think I am?"
That made every one pause. "What do you mean by that?" asked Rudabaugh, raising an eyebrow at her.
His analytical gaze made Rea's other half feel a bit uneasy, but not enough for her to back down from it. "Y'see, the person who Seiza talked with was Heiwa Rea. Although I'm not exactly her, I am a part of her. I'm...her humanity."
Everyone stared in silence at Rea's humanity for a solid minute.
"WHAT?!" Everyone but Outsider shouted in unison. Their tone was one of bafflement as they processed what she said.
Rea's human half flinched a little but stayed strong. "I think it's best if I start from the beginning, I'll try to be quick..."
And so she did, as Rea's humanity told them a summary of her story. She explained how she had just suddenly appeared in the deliquent's life, how she unintentionally got them arrested, and how she, without warning, gained control over Rea's body after transforming and all the problems that came from such a sudden change. Rea's humanity briefly considered sharing how her other self constantly told her to shut up, but she decided against it, arguing they wouldn't want to hear about a stranger's troubles. She was accompanied by nods and raised eyebrows, but thankfully, no one went out of their way to try and interrupt her. Except for Rea herself, but her humanity was able to zone her out after the first few shouts telling her to hurry up.
Throughout her explanation, Rea's humanity ended up, little by little, feeling at ease with explaining her story to everyone else without even noticing. If she had to guess, it was probably because she was happy talking with someone who would spare her the time of day after she had been constantly told to shut up by Rea.
It almost made her forget how she had places to be...almost. "So...yeah, I think this sums up my situation up until now, I think." She scratched her cheek.
"I guess that explains you talking to yourself..." Yoshino muttered. "Then, what's your name?" she asked.
"What?" Rea's humanity gave Yoshino a confused look as she asked with more pressure than intended.
"I mean...even if you're technically Heiwa-san, you're clearly someone who has developed a mind separated from her input and that's not even touching on the fact of how confusing it would become with you and Heiwa-san technically having the same first and last name. So to rephrase my question, what first name do you have in mind you wanna go by?" Yoshino asked again.
"A name..." Rea's humanity closed her eyes and tried to come up with one. She wouldn't deny that it proved harder than she thought since, deep down, she knew she was Rea. Coming up with another name she felt comfortable with proved harder than she cared to admit.
"Hmm...how about...Tsujin?" Nozomi suggested.
Rea's humanity opened her eyes and tilted her head at the masked magical girl. "Tsujin?"
"Yeah," Nozomi shrugged awkwardly. "You don't like it?"
Rea's humanity raised a hand to her chin. "Hmm, no, I...actually think it has a nice ring to it. Yeah, Heiwa Tsujin." Tsujin slowly nods. "I think it works."
"Good," Nozomi nodded, her tone clearly ashamed of something, but the delinquent's human self couldn't pinpoint exactly what. "Well, nice to finally meet you...would you mind if I call you Tsujin-san? To avoid confusion, of course."
Tsujin gave it some thought before she shook her head. "No, I wouldn't mind it actually. Hey, uh, it's nice and all that...whatever that thing was, it's now gone, but I got another question. How do I, y'know," Tsujin motioned her hands around herself. "Turn back to normal?"
"Oh. Just take off your tiara. There...shouldn't be any pain involved since it's instant, and there's no transformation?" Seiza said unsurely before adding. "B-but if anything goes wrong, I will act fast."
"That doesn't fill me with much confidence..." Tsujin admitted dryly.
Seiza sighed while nodding in agreement. "Yeah, that's fair. But, this is the best I can provide you when I don't know what's happening with your transformation."
The delinquent stared at Seiza briefly before glancing at Rea's spectral form pressuring her to decide with a stare. Tsujin sighed. "Fine, I'll do it. Oh, but before that!" She ignored Rea's upset expression, turning to Nozomi and giving her a small bow. "Thank you for saving me and Rea back there from that thing's attack, really." Even though Tsujin knew that Mukarramma's real target had been Nozomi and not her...she still felt like it was the right thing to do after seeing her cry.
Tsujin watched as Nozomi looked visibly taken aback by the former thanking her for anything. "O-oh, don't worry about it," Nozomi looked down on the floor. "It was just what anyone would do."
Tsujin reached for the back of her head to scratch it. "Also...I suppose I should thank you all for coming to the aid of a complete stranger. As much as Rea would vehemently try to deny it...I don't think we would have survived an encounter with that thing if we had to fight it by ourselves. So yeah."
Can you just get it over with already? Rea hurried Tsujin.
Yeah, yeah, just one more thing. Tsujin mentally sighed.
"Well, I said everything I wanted for now. For all it was worth...I guess it was nice meeting you guys, or at least, talking with people who were willing to hear me out." A small, sad smile grew on Tsujin's face as she knew she would return to the same routine as before, with Rea telling her to shut up and having no one else to talk to. "Bye." She said before taking the scorpion tiara off her head.
In an instant, the bright red on Tsujin's uniform returned to its original black colors. The first thing Rea did as she came back was to breathe in relief. For some reason, breathing felt weird to her. At the time, she chalked it up to not needing to breathe while in her spectral state. Finally, back to my body, I was about to think you wouldn't follow your end of the bargain... Rea trailed off as she noticed everyone staring at her in silence, with Tsujin, Rudabaugh, and Seiza's mouths visibly hung in shock.
Rea stared at them confused. Why are they looking at me like... Rea's mind trailed off before losing her balance.
But before she could truly hit her face on the ground, she suddenly stopped. When looking around, she saw Seiza biting on her shoe with his eyes closed. Seeing there was no one else in contact with her, Rea could only conclude within her currently hazy mind that it was his magic keeping her from hitting her face on the floor. Uh...I guess...he wasn't full of it.
Rea soon frowned as she looked slightly to where her left leg would be. Instead, she could only see something black with some small cracks. What...? The brash girl thought as she closed her eyes, the effort to keep them up proving too taxing.
She soon felt someone lifting her up, and not long after heard there were many voices around her. Finally, when the delinquent was about to lose consciousness, a comforting feeling woke her enough to clear her mind and open her eyes wide.
As she took in the night sky above, Rea soon instinctively moved her vision to where she felt that comforting feeling. Soon, her sight was welcomed by Seiza using his magic to regenerate her left leg. Rea watched blankly as she felt bones, veins, arteries, and muscles as they grew back one by one and were put into their right place. Wait...how did I...how did I lose that? That...doesn't seem right...
Weirdly enough, Rea didn't feel any pain through the process, but she did start feeling hungry. Man...I could eat an entire whale right now... Rea thought as drool began leaking out of her mouth.
Unaware to Rea and everyone else, Life, who was still disguised as Outsider, had taken a step back in disgust upon seeing the actual flood that was Rea's drool as it leaked from her mouth into the ground. No one but Life reacted to it.
"Okay, I'll now do the rest of the body, keep holding her like that," Seiza said before Rea felt his magic not just on her leg, but on her whole body.
If Rea's mind hadn't been distracted by her hunger at the time, she would have noticed that most of her body had been burned to the point that it was mostly black like charcoal, and falling apart. Her right leg was the first to break into black shards.
When Seiza finished healing, he wobbled a little before recovering and sighing. "Seiza, are you okay?" Yoshino asked the talking dog.
...Nope. Still weird. Rea frowned, still not used to the dog's capacity for speech.
Seiza quickly nodded. "Y-yeah, I'm okay. It just took a lot more concentration than usual...that and the surprise of it."
"I-is she going to be okay, Seiza?"
Rea turned to the source of that voice, her eyes landing on Nozomi as tears fell from the small gaps in her mask into the delinquent's uniform. The masked magical girl had made Rea rest her head on their lap while Seiza healed the brash girl. Rea couldn't help but frown at the sight of Nozomi crying for her.
"Tch, I'm fine, can I go now?" Rea asked rhetorically as she got up without waiting for anyone's answer.
After a few seconds of getting accustomed to her new leg, she turned to Seiza. "Hey, talking dog, can I have my stuff back?"
"O-oh, yes." The magical dog closed his eyes and gave Rea her groceries back.
With her groceries and schoolbag in hand, Rea pulled out her phone. Just like her clothes, it didn't seem like they sustained any damage from her magical girl transformation. She frowned as the time displayed on her phone immediately told her she was late. Ohhh...nooo, she's SO going to kill us! Tsujin bemoaned.
"Pain in the ass...Hey!" Rea turned to Nozomi and Yoshino. "I have a lot of questions and I'm not in the mood for dealing with your secret identity crap! Who are you guys?"
Yoshino and Nozomi traded glances, a silent conversation playing out between them before Nozomi nodded in agreement, and Yoshino took the lead. "I'm Kettei Yoshino, and this is my friend, Nakagawa Nozomi." Yoshino formally introduced herself and Nozomi.
"Nakagawa...Wait, aren't you that girl who made a fool of herself in my aunt's class?" Rea pointed at Nozomi as she asked that.
Nozomi's eyes widened. "Wait, Manabu-sensei is your-"
"Hold that thought," Rea raised her hand to interrupt Nozomi. "I've already heard enough for now, we'll continue tomorrow!" The no-nonsense delinquent declared, and without another word, she bolted out of the alleyway to her home, leaving Nozomi and the people Rea left behind to stare dumbfounded at the speed she had just finished their conversation.
All of them were unaware a security camera saw everything that had transpired after everyone exited Mukarramma's barrier.