Magical Girl? I Got Tricked Into It! Chapter 7

If there was any difference, it was probably that after becoming female, her body was smaller, softer, and cuter.

"So you're Koichi, right? Hehehe, you can't fool me."

Ando Meiko was at a loss for words. On a sudden whim, she thought that since she had already been found out, there seemed to be no harm in telling her.

"That's right, I'm Koichi. As you can see, for certain reasons, I've already become a girl." Silence. Absolute silence. The only thing audible beside her ears was some indescribable chewing.

"Koichi, come with me for a moment." Fuko grabbed her hand without explanation, pulled her into the bathroom, and shut the door.

Something felt wrong. Fuko, why were you locking the door? Even if you wanted to do something embarrassing to me now, I definitely wouldn't submit.

"Take off your clothes!"

This airhead actually dared to yell at me?

"But... but..."

"Be good and let me see!"

Faced with Fuko steadily advancing toward her, Ando Meiko clutched her clothes and kept backing away until she slipped into the bathtub, which was still slightly wet from being used earlier.

There was nowhere left to retreat.

Calm down, Fuko, calm down! Y-you, don't come any closer!!!

She screamed in her heart, but Fuko did not see the struggle in her eyes or the refusal on her face. She continued piling emotions called fear and despair onto her.

"Surrender!" At last, Fuko pounced on Ando Meiko, and her heart flew away along with the clothes casually tossed onto the floor.

Ando Meiko stared blankly, already feeling that nothing mattered anymore. Unable to escape the intense gaze of her childhood friend, she could only search within her heart for a way to leave Earth.

A moment later, Fuko ignored the tear of humiliation in Ando Meiko's eyes and gently brushed the place that should have been there with her hand, adding even more to her despair.

"Koichi, it really is gone... You really did become a girl. I thought you were just cosplaying and joking with me."

If I were cosplaying, why would my height and body type have changed so much too?

And why were you able to accept something like this so easily? Couldn't you show a more dramatic reaction, like suddenly jumping up and shouting, "Unbelievable! That can't be true!" or something?

"Sorry. At first, I thought you were lying to me."

"Why would I lie to you?"

With an unhappy expression, Ando Meiko was pulled out of the bathtub by Fuko. The clothes she had just changed into had gotten wet after falling onto the floor, so she could only toss them into the laundry basket.

She wrapped herself in a bath towel and was about to return to her room to find some clothes, but the strange sounds coming from the kitchen forced her to stop after only a few steps and turn back.

"Fuko, help me find something to change into."

"Okay~"

Fuko answered and left the bathroom to look for clothes in her room, while Ando Meiko hurried to the living room and opened the door.

The refrigerator in the kitchen was open. A pink tentacle reached inside, dragging out chunks of raw meat and vegetables, as well as the ham sandwich she had planned to eat for breakfast.

"Stop! Nanako, stop!"

"What's wrong, Sis?"

Nanako turned around at the sound of her voice. Her tentacle-like hair was still wriggling, and there was a patch of red liquid at the corner of her mouth. It was impossible to tell whether it was ketchup from something she had eaten or blood left behind from raw meat.

"Can you put your tentacles away first?"

"Okay."

Fortunately, Nanako was still obedient. She put away her tentacles, but her hair was already covered in filth—bits of meat, bread crumbs, and all kinds of sauces. The mixed smell was almost unbearable.

"Koichi, what happened? Huh? What's with this little girl?"

The question by her ear made her vision suddenly go dark. She pressed her temples with a headache and could not speak for a long time.

It's a complete mess. My school life is already gone, and now even life at home has turned into chaos. I just wanted an ordinary daily life. Why did so many unexpected things have to happen?

"I'll explain later."

"Mm, you should take her for a bath first. I'll handle dinner."

There was no need for thanks between her and Fuko. After nodding to Fuko, Ando Meiko led Nanako into the bathroom.

This kid, honestly. Even if she was hungry, she couldn't wait a few more minutes?

Although her hair could turn into tentacles, when it was in its normal hair state, it was still very smooth and beautiful. Yet that beautiful hair was now clumped together with grime.

"Master, do you know that girl?" The necklace Ruby had transformed into had somehow appeared on the bathroom shelf.

"You mean Fuko? Her name is Sakura Fuko. She's my childhood friend. Why ask all of a sudden?"

"It's nothing. The reason you fell into the barrier was because she hit you with her bicycle. You disappeared so suddenly that she thought hitting someone had only been an illusion."

"Oh my god, could it really be such a coincidence?" Ando Meiko felt as though her world was collapsing.

Of course... there were no coincidences in this world, only inevitabilities.

Volume One: How I Got Tricked Into Becoming a Magical Girl

Ando Meiko was about to wash Nanako's hair when a faint sound from outside the bathroom window caught her attention.

Looking up, she saw a white creature lying on the windowsill, quietly watching her.

"Moon, where have you been fooling around these past few days? You haven't even been eating, have you? Be careful not to upset your stomach by eating random things outside."

This flawless white creature with mismatched beige and blue eyes was Moon, the pet cat she had picked up a year ago.

When she had found it at the door of her home back then, it had been covered in blood. Now, it had become family and had spent even more time with her than her parents had.

"Meow."

She held out her hand toward Moon. With a soft cry, it jumped onto Ando Meiko's hand, then smoothly landed in her arms and rubbed against her affectionately.

Even though I've become a girl, it still seems to recognize my scent. Is that just an animal's instinct?

"Moon, go play by yourself for now. I need to wash the dirt stuck in Nanako's hair first."

Moon seemed to understand her words. It jumped from her arms to the floor, then left the bathroom under the gazes of both her and Nanako.

However, Ando Meiko noticed that the way Nanako looked at Moon was somewhat wrong. That was clearly the look someone gave food.

"Nanako, it's my family. Don't even think about doing anything to Moon, or I'll get angry."

"Ugh..." Nanako looked like a child caught red-handed after doing something bad. "Nanako understands."

Even if she wore such a wronged expression, there were some things Ando Meiko absolutely could not compromise on. Since she had brought her home, she had the responsibility to teach this little evil god what was right and what was wrong.

Of course, that process might take a very long time.

"Big Sis, it's so itchy. Ugh, washing hair is the worst."

"There's nothing to be done about it. Bear with it, okay? Who told you to touch so many dirty things with your tentacles? From now on, use your hands properly when picking things up. Don't use your hair, understand?"

"Okay..."

Both annoyed and amused, she worked shampoo through Nanako's hair until it was clean. Just as she was about to rinse it with water, Nanako leaned her entire body against her.

"Big Sis, you're so soft and comfortable. I wish I had this size too."

"..."

She did not know what words to use in response. It was something that would make any girl very happy to hear, yet she could not feel happy about it at all.

Undoing the bath towel around herself, Nanako grabbed the hand Ando Meiko had been using to wash her hair and placed it on her chest. Though it was completely flat, the slightly raised area still felt soft and comfortable to the touch.

"Meiko, hug me."

Suppressing the guilt that rose within her, she pushed Nanako slightly forward. "Sit properly. We're not done washing yet."

Enduring the flutter in her heart, she forcibly tied Nanako's bath towel back on, then carefully rinsed the foam from her hair with the showerhead.

Ando Meiko held down Nanako as she shook her hair. She grabbed that excessively long hair, picked up the scissors beside her, and carefully began trimming it.

"Does it hurt?"

"It doesn't hurt. Big Sis really is gentle."

Nanako's hair was beautiful, but her elementary-schooler-like height could not support such long hair.

So no matter how reluctant Ando Meiko was, she could only trim it a little.

However, considering that Nanako could control the tentacles her hair transformed into, she was unsure whether Nanako's hair could feel pain. That was why she asked whenever she cut off a little.

"Dinner's ready! Are you two done in there?" Fuko knocked on the bathroom door and called to them.

Even with ingredients in the fridge that did not need thawing, making an entire meal in the time it took to wash hair was far too fast. She could only say that Fuko truly was a girl who often did housework.

After drying themselves and changing into clean clothes, they went to the living room together.

The ransacked refrigerator had already been tidied up, and a fragrant dinner sat on the dining table, making Nanako, who had been starving for ages, drool.

In front of the childhood friend she was more familiar with than anyone else, she did not need to pretend to be some delicate girl. Including the meal at noon when she had had no appetite, she wolfed down the food before her.

"Come to think of it, what should I call you now? You seem like you want to hide it, so you don't plan on letting others know that you're Koichi, right?"

"Right, exactly. Until I completely turn back, I plan to live as a girl for a while. As for my name, I'm Ando Meiko, Ando Koichi's cousin."

"You really thought that through. It's a good thing your uncle and aunt aren't home, or you'd be exposed sooner or later. But..."

As her tone shifted, she realized Fuko was already staring at her with burning eyes.

"W-what is it?"

She had a faintly bad feeling about this. After all, only just now had she discovered that her childhood friend had such a forceful side.

"Since you're going to live as a girl, there are some habitual things you'll need to pay attention to."

"Habitual things?"

"It's fine, we have plenty of time. While I'm staying at your house, I can slowly teach you."

"I haven't asked you yet. Don't you need to go to school? Why did you come stay at my house?"

"Yeah, classes have been suspended for now. It seems there was a terrorist attack at school, and the place was blown up."

"No way. Fuko, you weren't hurt, were you?"

Fuko smiled and shook her head at her concern.

"Although the entire school building was blown away, there had been an earthquake beforehand, so the students had already run outside. That's why there were no deaths, though quite a few people were injured."

Terrorist attacks were not common in Tokyo, but they were not unheard of either. Still, why would they choose to blow up a school building?

Could the perpetrator have actually been a student? Maybe they wanted revenge against the school, so they made a bomb powerful enough to blow away the entire building.

Of course, Ando Meiko only imagined that because it sounded amusing. Explosives powerful enough to destroy an entire school building were not something someone could get their hands on casually.

[Master...]

Clang...

The sudden voice in her mind startled her so badly that she dropped her fork onto her plate.

Ruby always spoke to her directly through her consciousness like this. It was fine when nothing was happening, but when she was tense, it sometimes scared her.

Still, this ability was indeed quite convenient.

After all, telepathy was like radio communication. It was not one-way; she could also communicate with Ruby through her thoughts.

Even in public, she would not have to worry about being discovered while plotting something aloud.

[What is it?]

[Are you really not going to consider whether this has something to do with your identity?]

Volume One: How I Got Tricked Into Becoming a Magical Girl

[So what are you saying?]

[A disaster that humans could not cause might have been caused by a battle. Damage in the Void World can be reflected in the real world through spatial distortion.]

[All right, that's enough.]

For someone like her, who could only use a magic wand to bash things, let alone a battle capable of blowing away an entire school building, even an ordinary Demonic Beast might easily crush her to death.

"That earthquake really came at the right time, then."

"It was terrifying. Even now, I still get scared when I think about it. But there's nothing to do while school is suspended, so I thought I'd take this chance to come play at your house."