Magical Girls Have to Be Idols Too

"We have arrived at Cloud City South Station. Passengers getting off here, please gather your belongings and exit in an orderly manner."

Following the stream of passengers, Zhou Mo finally escaped the carriage, with its mingled smells of food and stinky feet.

"Phew! Finally, I can breathe."

Zhou Mo rubbed her sleepy eyes, took a moment to adjust to the slightly dazzling sunlight, then drew a deep breath of fresh air. Only then did her head feel clearer.

"The air really is better outside."

After leaving the station and standing on the streets of Cloud City for the first time, Zhou Mo couldn't help marveling at the bustling scene before her.

Ah, the light. Ah, the water. Ah, those massive boobs- ahem.

She awkwardly looked away.

"Let's see, the address is..."

Zhou Mo pulled out her phone, clumsily opened a ride-hailing app, and searched the map for her new address.

While booking her ride, she happened to spot a girl hurrying down the opposite side of the street.

As for why she noticed her immediately in the crowd, the girl's outfit was simply that eye-catching.

She wore a pink-and-white pleated dress, and even her hair was pink. Her twin ponytails swayed behind her as she ran, and she held a strangely shaped magic wand in both hands.

"Is this that legendary thing called cosplay?"

She marveled briefly at the girl's appearance, but soon looked away.

Before long, a rideshare car stopped nearby.

She went over, checked the booking number with the driver, and got in.

The car slowly pulled away. Watching the city scenery retreat outside the window, Zhou Mo's thoughts wandered.

For as long as she could remember, she had spent most of her life in the village, growing up on meals provided by the villagers. The farthest she had ever gone was the nearest little town. This was her first trip away from home.

"Little Mo, you're the brightest child in our village. To give our village its first university student, we've decided to send you to school in the city. We've already found you a school and a place to stay. You'll leave when the new term starts."

One day, the elderly village chief had suddenly pulled her aside and told her that. And so, without quite understanding how it had happened, Zhou Mo had been sent to this unfamiliar city.

Fortunately, she had visited the small county town before, so she knew a little about modern city life.

"Food, housing, getting around... it shouldn't be that different from village life, right?"

As Zhou Mo reminisced, she happened to catch sight of a white cat sitting primly beside the road.

It was an utterly unremarkable white cat, but whether by coincidence or not, Zhou Mo had noticed it from inside the car.

Even city cats wait at red lights. That's a new one.

Her thoughts drifted a little.

When the car turned onto another street, she caught another fleeting glimpse of a white cat by the roadside.

Once, twice, three times...

"Huh?"

Zhou Mo turned to look behind the car and blinked in confusion. Why did it feel as though she had seen a white cat sitting beside the street three times in a row?

Just as she began wondering whether her eyes were playing tricks on her, a thunderous explosion rang out in the distance.

With a screech, the car braked abruptly. Zhou Mo slammed her head into the front seat, forcibly jolting her out of her thoughts.

"Oh, hey! You all right, young man?"

The middle-aged driver looked back at Zhou Mo, his concern tinged with embarrassment.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. What just happened? Was there an accident?"

Zhou Mo rubbed her aching forehead and waved a hand.

"Nothing major. Probably another Magical Girl fighting."

"?"

Did the driver just say Magical Girl, or had she misheard?

Zhou Mo opened her mouth, unsure what to say.

Perhaps noticing her hesitation, the driver said in surprise:

"Huh? You don't know? It's a Cloud City specialty. You can usually find out about it online."

"Well, I've always lived in a village, so I don't really know much about things out here."

Zhou Mo scratched her head.

"I see."

The driver rubbed his chin, then swiped a few times on the dashboard screen, bringing up a video.

"There should be a livestream now. Have a look and you'll get the idea."

The image on the screen stunned Zhou Mo.

It showed an aerial view of the city. The streets below were riddled with craters, with countless plumes of black smoke rising from them, as though they had been bombed.

Amid it all stood a pink-haired girl with twin ponytails, holding a slender staff in a battle stance on the cratered street.

It was the very girl she had seen on the street and assumed was cosplaying.

In front of the girl stood an enormous masked Monster with two bull horns on its head.

The two faced each other down.

At the sight, Zhou Mo's brain instantly crashed, completely unable to process anything on the screen.

"Oh! It's Miss Xia Ya! Now this deserves my full attention."

The driver immediately grew excited when he saw the pink-haired girl on the screen.

"Sir, is this some kind of movie?"

Zhou Mo couldn't help asking.

"What movie? That's a Magical Girl fighting a Monster. It's all real, and it's not even far from here."

"Haha... You're very funny, sir."

"Don't believe me? Want me to take you over for a look?"

Seeing Zhou Mo's skeptical expression, the driver raised an eyebrow.

Without waiting for her reply, he started the car and drove toward the scene.

Zhou Mo could hardly describe what she saw.

At the scene, a cute girl in a pink dress, who looked delicate and frail, was locked in fierce combat with a bull-horned, masked Monster. At times, the two raced through the streets, leaving round craters wherever they collided. At others, they flew into the air, sending shock waves rippling across the sky.

The driver had called her a Magical Girl, but there seemed to be something off about her fighting style.

Was this some sort of legendary warrior?

"No, this isn't the time to think about that!"

Zhou Mo shook her head hard and urgently told the driver:

"It's dangerous here! Let's go!"

Yet the driver didn't move. He merely lit a cigarette and said confidently:

"It's fine. There's a magical barrier protecting us while Magical Girls fight. As long as the Magical Girl doesn't lose, the Monster can't hurt us."

"Look around if you don't believe me."

Sitting in the car, Zhou Mo looked around.

She found crowds standing in the street, taking out their phones to film. People were also poking their heads out of the surrounding buildings to watch.

"What kind of city is this...?"

Zhou Mo was utterly speechless.

In the distance, after a fierce aerial battle, the bull-horned Monster was knocked back to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

"Monster, you can resist no longer! Face your judgment!"

The pink-haired girl hovered in the air, looking down at the Monster. It sat slumped on the cracked ground, utterly spent.

She immediately raised her magic wand. As she chanted, countless motes of light materialized in the air and gathered at its tip.

"Magic release: Ultimate Flash!"

A dazzling beam descended. The Monster offered no resistance, its figure simply vanishing into the pink-and-white pillar of light.

Another deafening explosion rang out, but this time Zhou Mo was right there. She had already gotten out of the car and stood watching with her mouth hanging open, unable to close it for a long time.

The screams one would expect from people facing disaster never came. Instead, cheers rose to welcome the victory.

"The stage is coming! Quick, get ready!"

"Huh?"

Zhou Mo didn't understand what the driver meant. She watched him suddenly hurry to the back of the car, pull something out of the trunk, then run back and hand her two sticks.

"Here, here, take these! Let's join in the fun."

Zhou Mo accepted the glow sticks blankly, only for the driver to drag her toward the slowly descending pink-haired girl.

Before they could get close, a dazzling light erupted around the girl, forcing Zhou Mo to shut her eyes.

When she opened them again, the ravaged street had vanished. After a wash of pink light, the damaged buildings and roads around them were restored to their original state.

An open-air stage rose from the intersection, and a crowd began gathering below it.

Onstage, the pink-themed girl with twin ponytails held a microphone, dancing cheerfully as she sang a song Zhou Mo had never heard.

"Ho! Hey! Ho! Hey!"

"Xia Ya! I love you so much! I'm buying a hundred support tickets for you!"

Zhou Mo stared blankly at everything happening before her. Beside her, the driver had unzipped his jacket, revealing a white shirt printed with a cartoon pink-haired girl, and was waving his glow sticks nonstop.

This city really had gone mad.

By the time she came back to her senses, it was already evening.

After getting out of the car and saying goodbye to the driver, Zhou Mo stood in a daze before a building in the residential complex.

What had she just seen? A Magical Girl? A stage?

It had to be some kind of advanced technology, something like a holographic projection.

She had seen high-tech shows online before, drone displays and the like. This had to be something similar. It was a big city, after all. A little extra technological development was perfectly normal.

Having finally convinced herself, Zhou Mo hauled her luggage upstairs, found the right floor, and rummaged for her keys, preparing to unlock the door.

Just then, a sound came from the stairwell. Zhou Mo turned and saw a girl with twin ponytails and a few pink streaks in her bangs.

The girl froze when their eyes met.

"Uh, hello. I just moved in here, so we'll be neighbors from now on. Nice to meet you."

Zhou Mo greeted her a little awkwardly.

"Mm, hello."

The girl nodded and replied softly, then walked past Zhou Mo with her head lowered.

"N-nice to meet you, too."

Standing at her door, the girl hesitated, then turned and murmured one more thing to Zhou Mo before closing it.

Zhou Mo glanced at the closed door opposite hers, thought nothing more of it, and took out her keys to enter her apartment.

It had one bedroom and a living room, more than enough for one person.

After looking around the living room, she turned and dragged her luggage toward the bedroom.

╱/(◕‿‿◕)\╲

"..."

The moment she entered the bedroom and looked up, she met the eyes of a white cat sitting on the bed.

"Aaaah!"

Startled by the creature that had appeared out of nowhere, Zhou Mo stumbled back several steps and nearly landed on her backside.

She steadied herself and looked more closely. The white cat had crimson eyes. Though it looked like an ordinary cat, there were strange red markings on its back.

Unable to identify its breed, she studied the strange white cat. The cat tilted its head and looked back, its eyes somehow seeming to appraise her.

"Young man, tremendous magical power lies dormant within you, meow."

Zhou Mo's eyes widened, and she looked from side to side.

Who just spoke?

"Where are you looking? Over here, meow."

Only then did Zhou Mo look toward the voice and discover that the cat was still staring at her.

"Was that you talking? W-what are you?"

She ventured the question.

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Rabi. I'm from Zohar, a talent agency whose main business is cultivating Magical Girl idols."

The white cat began introducing itself.

"?"

Perhaps everything she had seen today had already stretched her understanding too far. Even facing a talking cat now no longer felt like something that could overturn her worldview.

She had seen Magical Girls in anime, and she understood idols, too. Put the two together, though, and she was lost.

"Magical Girls are this city's guardians and symbols of hope. Their mission is to fight Monsters corrupted by the Abyss. That's what you witnessed today."

As though reading her mind, the white cat calling itself Rabi explained.

"Most importantly, Magical Girls can generate enormous commercial value for the company as idols."

"..."

"So, how about it? Want to become a Magical Girl, meow?"

Zhou Mo couldn't help saying:

"No, wait a second. Magical Girls are supposed to be girls, right? No matter how you look at me, I'm just an ordinary high school boy!"

Rabi let out a remarkably human sigh, closed its eyes, and shook its head.

"Your aptitude doesn't lie. There's no rule saying male humans can't transform into Magical Girls."

"...I think the real question is still why people can turn into Magical Girls at all."

"Let me demonstrate."

Without explaining further, two red rings of light burst from Rabi's eyes, instantly illuminating the room.

Zhou Mo instinctively raised her hands to shield herself. When the light faded, she gave the white cat a confused look, unable to notice any change.

"There's a mirror on the wardrobe."

Rabi's tail stood straight up, pointing toward the wardrobe off to the side.

Zhou Mo blinked, not quite understanding what that meant, but walked over anyway.

Yet when she reached the mirror on the wardrobe...

A girl-or perhaps a little creature in the shape of one-with a petite figure stood in the mirror.

Long, silvery-white hair cascaded down to her waist. Her face was flawless, her skin so delicate it seemed a breath could break it. Starlight seemed to shimmer in her pale blue eyes.

She wore a blue-and-white dress with white thigh-high stockings, looking utterly cute and innocent.

It was the first time she had ever seen such a beautiful girl, and she couldn't help staring in a daze.

So cute. I want to marry her.

But why is this girl in the mirror? Where is she?

Zhou Mo moved, and the girl in the mirror moved too. She reached out to touch the mirror, and the girl opposite her extended her hand at the same time. Their palms aligned, pressing against the mirror together.

The girl froze.

"...Huh?"