The next day passed in relative peace. Haruna attended school as normal, although she passed out as soon as she sat down for her lunch. Last night had been a bit spooky for everyone, so it wasn’t odd that she’d slept poorly - in her own mind, at least. She dragged herself home, avoiding the temptation to take flight, and ascended the stairs to her apartment once again. There was no Mrs. Tanaka to help with groceries this time, so Haruna had time to settle in. In theory, this time was allocated for homework and studying, but she found herself yawning after finishing the first assignment.
"I can probably just catch up tomorrow evening, right?” she asked the plushie that now sat in one corner of her desk. Haruna stood from the chair and flopped onto the bed with a sigh. She was pretty sure she had nothing else to do until nightfall, so she’d have time to take a longer nap.
Or so she thought, anyway, until she heard a knock at her door. Another, smaller sigh, and she stood up.
"Be right there,” she called, before hurrying past her discarded backpack to open up.
On the other side of the door stood a relatively tall girl wearing the Hibusa High senior’s uniform. Her hair was as a long, elegant journey into the night that framed her face with short bangs and reached nearly to her thighs. Her eyes offered the warmth of cooling embers, the polite smile on her lips only serving to complete the image. She also seemed familiar, as though Hizuki had seen her before. Quite recently, too.
”Ah! It is nice to meet you. Might you be Haruna Maeda?” She bowed her head slightly as she spoke, just enough to acknowledge an underclassman in the same school.
"Uh, yeah.” She frowned a bit as she tried to place the girl exactly. They’d probably shared a class or passed one another in the hallway or something, right?
"Did you need something?” As she waited for the reply, she pondered further.
No, it’s more than that. Her desires are hazy. This is a magical girl, which means she’s probably in the Detention Club. I don’t know if I should let on that I know that. She tried not to let her nerves show as she realized
which member this was, if Haruna was correct anyway, despite the promise of future civility.
”Oh no! I umm… I uhh…” The girl in question averted her eyes. Her desires wavered for a moment even through the fog of magic before they refocused.
”I… I heard you got injured recently. I am here to check up on you?” She did not seem to be sure of herself as she spoke, turning her statement into a question.
”If… if that’s okay. I won’t impose.”". . . You should probably come in. There’s not a lot of space, but you can sit at my desk, if you want.” She stepped aside to allow the dark-haired girl passage into the apartment. It was still rather austere, with only a couple errant plushies to break up the blank walls surrounding the desk and bed. Haruna’s laundry was just sort of pushed up against one wall, and the occasional discarded box of precooked food rested on the kitchen countertops.
"You’re here about the whole, uh, throttling thing, right?””It’s that obvious, huh?” A sigh left the girl’s lips as she crossed the threshold.
”Yes. I’m here because I want to make things right. I don’t have healing magic anymore, but I hoped… I hoped I could help you a little.” Were those really words from a dark magical girl? It did not seem like something an avatar of selfishness or a selfish person would say. Even the way the girl’s eyes looked at Haruna seemed different than the gaze of most Dark Magical Girls.
”Would I be allowed to do so?” A genuine question. An honest-to-god, genuine question that did not seem to harbor ill intentions, but did hold the wish not to overstep boundaries.
"I’m fine, really. Don’t worry about me.” She gave a small smile that was probably intended to be reassuring, though the effect was spoiled somewhat by the state of the room and the bags under her eyes.
"I guess I won’t stop you from doing anything to help if you really want to, though?” Her gaze and tone both were questioning, wondering how this rapid turn had happened.
"Like I told Evil Eye, I mostly just came here to see if the Detention Club needed any help. I was expecting to get a little beat up in the process.”The girl tilted her head to the side, the gesture making her seem three or four years younger than she looked.
”But we did say we wouldn’t attack you! So I’m here because of that and first…” she made a show of looking around,
”Is it all right if I start tidying things up here? I’ll ask where things go, but I don’t think it’s healthy to sit here like this!” By all that was holy and sacred, was this girl sparkling?! No, no, that must have been a trick of the light, though her expression did look overly happy for someone who just offered to clean up a mess.
Haruna looked a bit pained at having her mess pointed out.
”Is it really that bad? I just haven't gotten around to cleaning my room, since I need to cover a lot more area on my patrols than back in the city of light.” There, she'd had plenty of girls with overlapping territories to split the load with. Hibusa wasn't nearly as big, but with only the Detention Club hunting when they felt like it and not bothering with the rest, it was a big obligation to meet for a lone light girl.
”Now that,” the girl paused, dramatically so before she winked, stuck out her tongue and gave the V-sign over her winking eye,
”is a secret!” She then giggled as though she had just made the world’s greatest joke before she adopted a more serious expression and started to survey the room more thoroughly.
”More seriously, hunting Miseria helps us too, so maybe I could try to talk to everyone about it.” She sounded serious about her offer, too, as she started categorising what she needed to do.
”I'd be happy to leave all the miseria to you guys, honestly. As long as people are safe, it doesn't matter to me.” She almost insisted she was fine to handle it anyway, but there were limits to even Haruna's ability to turn down help freely offered.
”I'd be able to start later and end earlier if I just had to focus on people who need help.” Haruna paused for a moment, clearly weighing whether she should say something.
It's probably easier if I start by accepting what she said, even though it doesn't really sound like much of a reason to attack someone you don't know either way. “You said you didn't recognize me. Does that mean you thought I was someone else, or did you just, like, assume I was a GEM muscling in on your territory?”The girl started by cleaning and tidying up a shelf for the scattered schoolbooks. She was maybe a dozen seconds in when she winced at Haruna’s question.
”Yeah… that wasn’t true. I didn’t know what to say. Umm… I still don’t want to say it. But umm… Not all light girls are nice.” Her tone darkened as she spoke, the sentence hanging in the air as though it were a noose.
”I promise not to attack you again.” Despite her speaking at a low volume, the conviction in her voice stood solid as steel.
Haruna held up a hand placatingly.
”I won't pry. All I really need to know is that you had troubles with other light girls.” She didn't know this girl very well, and suspected Shatterscape didn't really want to bare her soul to a relative stranger. That thought prompted a realization.
”What's your name, by the way? I only know you as Shatterscape.””That’s a little…” Why would one hesitate on sharing their name? It almost seemed as though this topic had almost the same weight to it as the previous one. Especially because the girl sighed before giving her answer.
”I guess it’d be the best if you called me Shuuko.””I don't mean to be pushy. I guess I just thought it was fair, since you know my actual name now.” Haruna shrugged.
”Either way, I hope we can be friends from now on? Since we'll be working together at least a little.””Hopefully, yeah! You’ll find me under that name in school, too,” the girl responded with a smile in her voice.
”Just don’t be surprised if I act different, okay? I’ve got a reputation to keep at school.” While the choice of words was questionable, perhaps, it did not feel as though they implied her to be a delinquent. Just that there was a difference between how she acted in one place and in another.
Haruna considered Shuuko's statement in light of the fractured desires she'd sensed that night. There was probably something more going on than Shuuko was letting on, but there wasn't really enough information to actually figure it out.
”Alright, I'll keep that in mind. Although maybe don't repeat our first meeting at school, that'd be a little awkward to explain.” She gave Shuuko a small smile, making it clear she was just indulging in some light ribbing.
The girl winced as she lifted one of the books onto the shelves.
”I’ll keep that in mind,” she responded with a bit of regret seeping into her voice before it turned cheerful once again.
”Anyways, let’s hope that the others will welcome you too! Oh! Maybe we can host a welcome party for you?””For Haruna, or for Hizuki? I haven't really told everyone who I am yet, and I'm not actually sure I should.” There was clear conflict in her tone; Haruna disliked lying, even if only through omission. It seemed like the best approach for helping, even if she was pretty sure people would figure it out on their own eventually.
”I don't think I need to tell Evil Eye though, she probably already figured it out. Rei probably knows too, she seems kinda omniscient.””Everyone in the Detention Club knows each other’s identities,” replied the girl as she tidied up the stack she had been building, then bent down for the last book she wanted to place,
”Even if there are some special circumstances,” namely, herself,
”so you should introduce yourself! You’ll make more friends that way. Also, it wasn’t that hard to find you. I came here straight away, didn’t I?” A healthy dose of mischief entered the girl’s voice as she professed how easy it was to find Haruna.
”I guess that makes sense. It’s a little awkward, though, because I got invited to the club while everyone else thought I wasn’t a magical girl, and then Rei told me I was in separately from that.” After a couple more moments of watching Shuuko clean up after her, Haruna stood up herself and started to collect trash for disposal, unable to watch someone else labor on her behalf any longer.
”I didn’t realize I was that easy to follow, though. I thought I was doing a decent job of staying hidden on my way home.””There’s more than that at work here,” responded the girl as she looked at Haruna, her eyes widening.
”Ah, you don’t have to help! Weren’t you doing your homework? I did this because I genuinely wanted to uh… apologise and… um…” she trailed off as she spoke, averting her eyes as a touch of rouge appeared on her cheeks for a second before she suddenly perked up and started to speak forcefully.
”Anyways! You don’t have to help me help you! That’d defeat the point of helping!””R-right. Sorry.” Haruna sat back down, trying to actually focus on her homework, before realizing she’d never actually established what she was doing. It hadn’t been homework at all. It’d be a bit awkward to tell her that she’d been getting ready to take a nap, so the light girl decided to just roll with it. She did still need to keep her grades up, after all. A yawn cracked her jaw open as soon as she began to reach for her math textbook.
”You were saying something about there being more at work?” she asked, pushing past.
”The Detention Club’s scary,” came the non-answer from the girl as she turned back to her self-appointed task. She started to pick up the trash that Haruna had tried to move.
”I think you’ll understand once we welcome you. Oh! I can’t wait. Another girl li-” she cut herself off abruptly, almost slamming her jaws shut, only to continue with a more hurried cadence.
”I meant things are going to be much brighter with you around.” She deliberately emphasized the word, making it clear that she meant the pun.
Haruna tilted her head, but elected not to press Shuuko on whatever she’d been about to say. Instead, she shook her head and snorted at the comment on the effects of her presence.
”Yeah, hopefully something like that,” she said with a small laugh.
”Of course, maybe that’s a bad thing. Kiyo acted like she was gonna puke just on hearing my introduction as a magical girl.””Kiyo’s always like that, so don’t worry. I think she bit a lemon the day she was born and she hasn’t stopped eating a lemon a day ever since!” The girl laughed.
”Besides that and umm… my… err… unwelcome greetings,” and boy was that a euphemism for trying to murder someone in cold blood,
”Are you feeling okay in the city so far?” She nodded.
”Yeah. I’m settling in, slowly, and getting a good handle on the layout. It’s a lot easier when you see it from above regularly. Hibusa’s a lot less noisy than the city of light, too, which is nice. It’s easier to sleep at . . . well, I don’t really sleep at actual night that often right now, but you know what I mean. Plus, honestly, I was expecting the whole club to be hostile to my presence. I didn’t think Rei would allow me to exist here at all, going off her reputation.””There’s all sorts of rumours about Hibusa Town. Unfortunately, a lot of them are true, so…” the girl spread her arms in a theatrical ‘what can you do’ gesture.
”I know why you believed it. Honestly… I just wish Hibusa was a brighter place.” Now that sounded strange from the lips of a dark magical girl, didn’t it? She clearly meant it in the metaphorical sense, too, as she continued to elaborate.
”It’d be great if there were less Miseria to cause people pain…”Haruna sort of shrugged and gave another small smile.
”That’s why I’m here, I guess. I know there are dark girls with wishes like that, and nobody’s really trying to fulfill them. I don’t think someone should be ignored like that just because they didn’t match up to someone’s standards or had something really bad happen to them, you know? There’s also the rest of the town, which is why I hunt miseria, at least.”The girl nodded a little too enthusiastically to that.
”It isn’t like hunting Miseria hurts us. Maybe you really should talk with Nyxia, she’d enjoying kil- hunting them with you,” the girl smiled as she finished collecting the wrappers and small pieces of trash around the apartment she found.
”Oh! Maybe we should work together! I think she’d like you!””That’s not a bad idea. I don’t really know where she hangs out, usually, but I wouldn’t mind being part of a team for once. Back in the city of light, I was usually doing my own thing. I had other magical girl friends, but no actual group I was part of.” She thought back to Nyxia’s reactions to her.
”I did get the impression Nyxia liked me, too. So yeah, I’d love to work together.”The girl held out her hand for a handshake with the widest grin on her face as she reached for Hizuki, almost going as far as to touch the other girl before something occurred to her and she withdrew the offered limb as fast as lightning.
”Ah! I’m so sorry! I… uh… I think I should wash my hands first… but yes! Let’s work together. Umm… now, where can I…?” Her voice trailed off as she averted her eyes.
Hizuki blinked, having begun to react to what she thought was going to be a handshake. Shuuko’s reaction was. . . puzzling, to say the least.
”Er, there’s a sink over in the kitchen area,” she said, pointing across the counter dividing it from the main area of the apartment.
”And another one in the bathroom.” She hesitated for a moment.
”Are you alright?””Yes, I’m fine. I’ll be right back!” The girl ducked into the bathroom for a few moments and returned just as quickly.
”Again, I’m sorry,” she said before she offered her hand again. This time, she met Haruna’s grip head on with her own.
She took the handshake and returned it firmly.
”Looking forward to working with you. Assuming Rei doesn’t decide to have an issue with it, or something. I still haven’t really gotten a read on her.” Was she actually worried about hygiene that much. . . ? Actually, that wasn’t that weird, considering the state of her room and how concerned Shuuko had been with cleaning it.
”Great! Just… uhh… again, don’t be surprised if I act different at school, okay? Promise?” Worry filled the girl’s voice as she let go of the handshake. She pursed her lips, her head tilting slightly to the side.
”Please? It’ll be worth it if you stick it out.” Strangely enough, it almost sounded as though she were apologising for something in advance without saying it out loud.
Haruna's brow furrowed in visible confusion.
”Uh, sure, I guess.” She gave a noncommittal shrug, clearly wondering at the implications of the request.
”Everyone acts a little different in different contexts. It's probably fine?”The girl looked deep into Haruna’s eyes, uncomfortably so. Though the distance between them did not decrease, her gaze seemed as though it were searching her new-found friend’s very soul, examining it mote by mote. The silence between them stretched out for what seemed like a subjective eternity before a smile bloomed on the girl’s face - obviously fake and obviously hiding her true thoughts.
”Hopefully,” she responded, the word weighing a thousand tons on her lips.
”Anyway, I’ll finish up here,” she indicated the rest of the room,
”And then I’ll be out of your hair, okay?””Okay.” Suddenly, Haruna Maeda felt more uneasy than she had since arriving in Hibusa.
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