Mana: 8

Sunday mornings at the Yagami House began with egg pancakes.

Huo Lin finished making them in ten minutes and glanced at the wall clock. It was still a little early.

Since she was at home, Huo Lin was dressed casually in pajama tops and bottoms. The only odd thing was the book tucked into her waistband.

It was an antique-looking bronze book. Its cover was dark brown, bearing a sword-cross emblem.

She did not want to look this strange either, but she could not let the book leave her side. Otherwise, there would be serious trouble.

While she was debating whether to wake Hayate, the sound of slippers came from the stairs.

"Good morning, Huo Lin."

"Morning. Why didn't you sleep a little longer? There's still plenty of time before your hospital appointment."

Hayate and Huo Lin were twins. Both their parents had passed away three years ago, when the two of them were only six, and an uncle had taken them in afterward.

But both girls were very independent. After starting elementary school, they had even taken the initiative to move back into their own home.

Their uncle had been worried at first and visited once a week. Once he saw that they really could take care of themselves, his visits gradually became less frequent. He simply left them a phone number to call if they needed anything.

Life was unpredictable, but they still had to keep living. Nothing else happened over the next few years. Huo Lin and Hayate gradually grew up, and they were now in fourth grade.

Everything had been peaceful. Yet three months ago, misfortune had struck this little family again.

Hayate fell ill.

There had been no warning. At first, her legs felt a little weak. Gradually, she became unable to walk, and two weeks later, her lower body was paralyzed. She could no longer get out of bed.

Even the hospital could not determine the cause. They only said it was an extremely rare congenital disease. Its ferocious onset caught everyone off guard.

Not long afterward, on June 4, Huo Lin and Hayate's ninth birthday, Huo Lin finally received her "cheat."

Yes, she had almost forgotten that she had been reincarnated.

In her previous life, Huo Lin had been an international student at the University of Tokyo, sent from her home country on a government-funded exchange program to the island nation.

During her first academic year there, she had lived on campus, only for two roommates to bare their hearts to each other over a girl-with knives.

After the fatal incident, she could no longer stay in the dorm, so she rented a place near campus in her second year. But the gift she brought her neighbor when moving in was liquor-filled chocolate. She had not realized the neighbor was allergic to alcohol, and the resentful neighbor lay in wait and stabbed her through the heart.

After dying and being reborn in Tokyo, Huo Lin discovered that this world was somewhat different from her previous one.

In this world's Tokyo, Beika Town was actually gone. In its place was "Shinjuku," a name she had never heard before. It was also where the Yagami House now stood.

The enormous neighboring Beika City was gone too. The city in its place was called Haiming City.

The "cheat" that finally arrived on her ninth birthday was called the "Magical Girl System."

She had been a boy, yet she had awakened as a magical girl.

Once activated, she would go from male to female and live on as a magical girl. If she gave it up, she would remain an ordinary person for the rest of her life.

Should I stay an ordinary person and live an ordinary life?

Or activate the system and enter the world of magic?

Huo Lin chose the latter. She was already tired of ordinary life. It was only a change of sex; that hardly counted as a price. This was not ancient times, with rigid moral codes that treated women as inferior.

Besides, if she really regretted it, she could simply give up the system and go back to being an ordinary person.

And if there was anything else that had cemented her decision, it was finally learning what Hayate's "illness" really was.

It was not an illness at all, but the result of a magical item that had gone out of control! Hayate had picked up a bronze notebook somewhere, called the "Book of the Night Sky."

The illness the hospital could not treat became treatable once Huo Lin awakened her cheat.

So there was nothing left to hesitate over. Huo Lin chose to activate it.

Then she discovered that this cheat, the so-called "Magical Girl System," was rather bare-bones.

There were no game-like stat points, no daily check-ins, no quests, and no other rewards of any kind.

It had only one effect:

Mana: 8

No, it was not an "8." This "8" must have been too tired, because it was lying down.

All right, that was a joke. Of course Huo Lin recognized the symbol:

∞

It read as MAX-infinity. Like in a game, this system was a cheat that locked her mana bar.

Other than that, her cheat had no effects.

But if she was playing a mage with a locked mana bar, what other effects did she need?

The magical girl transformation had no light show, nor did it give her a uniform or a magic wand. It simply turned her from male to female.

As twins, she and Hayate had already looked somewhat alike. Now they looked exactly the same. When their uncle visited two days ago, he had mistaken her for Hayate without noticing anything wrong at all.

Hayate walked down the stairs and looked at the pajama-clad girl who looked exactly like her, transferring egg pancakes from the frying pan to a plate. Her feelings were complicated.

Huo Lin had become like this because of her-that realization had left Hayate feeling guilty throughout this time.

She could not honestly claim that she would rather be bedridden and paralyzed. Ever since Huo Lin became a magical girl and used her mysterious power to suppress that book, Hayate's body had gradually recovered. That was a fact.

But it was also a fact that Huo Lin had gone from being a boy to a girl because of her.

Although Huo Lin had never said anything, Hayate knew she must have plenty of worries.

For instance, how was Huo Lin supposed to attend school? To the school and her teachers, Huo Lin was a boy.

And how could she prove that the information on her family register referred to her? Would the police and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications understand? There would be a whole series of problems in the future.

Although she was only nine, losing her parents had made Hayate mature early. She was sure Huo Lin must have thought of all this already too.

But Huo Lin said nothing.

"Uncle just called and asked whether we needed him to drive over and pick us up. I told him no. You're okay with walking to the station and taking the train, right?"

Huo Lin had no idea what was troubling Hayate. She set the finished egg pancakes on the dining table, then poured soy milk from the soy milk maker and added some sugar and milk.

"Yes, that's fine. I can walk on my own."

She really was almost completely recovered. Although she still felt a little weak sometimes, Hayate knew perfectly well that she was gradually getting better, not worse. If the school had not required medical clearance to reinstate her enrollment, she would not even have wanted to go to the hospital.

They ate breakfast quickly, neither saying much.

But when Huo Lin headed upstairs to change before going out, Hayate stopped her.

"Huo Lin, you should wear my clothes."

"Why?"

She really had never worn girls' clothes, let alone clothes Hayate had worn.

"What do you mean, 'why'...?"

Wasn't it obvious?

Everything in Huo Lin's wardrobe was boys' clothing. It was already summer in mid-June, and boys' shorts and short-sleeved shirts were obviously very unsuitable for her now.

Whatever Huo Lin herself thought, from Hayate's outside perspective, seeing a girl who looked exactly like her dressed that way was rather embarrassing.

"But your clothes... would that be okay?"

"Why wouldn't it be? We're family."

Hayate saw absolutely nothing wrong with lending Huo Lin clothes she had worn.

There were indeed hygiene concerns with underwear, but shirts and skirts were perfectly fine, weren't they?

"If you don't want to wear my clothes, just put up with them for now. When we come back from the hospital, we can buy some new clothes in the shopping street near the station. I'll help you pick them out."

"Okay, let's do that." She had given up fighting it.