Chapter Two: Magical Girl

I was running. Running as fast as I could.

I had to get away. I poured every ounce of my strength into fleeing.

That was all I could think about as my feet pounded the earth. Several times, I nearly fell, flailing my arms pathetically to steady myself and groaning.

Soon, though, my flight was arrested.

I let out a gasp: a dead end.

Several meters ahead of me was a sheer cliff. There was no more ground for my feet to pound. Everything around me was full of rich greenery; you could almost call it idyllic—but under the leaden clouds that now hovered above me, that pastoral beauty seemed like just a ploy to emphasize how hopeless my situation was.

“Now I’ve got you... tee hee!”

The words came from behind me, with the force of a death sentence. I spun around—and there stood a girl with emerald eyes, staring at me.

The wind caressing the grass of the field caught her silver hair and caused it to dance. Unusually, though, that hair was tied to either side of her head—twintails. They made her look like a different person.

But it was Petralka.

Her outfit, too, was different from usual. She was wearing a white shirt, the neckline of which had unique reverse triangle shapes. It was paired with white socks and a pleated skirt in dark plaid. It seemed pure and simple at first glance, yet her midriff, which was suddenly visible when she arched her back, gave off an inescapable eroticism.

Oh! Be still my heart! I could never confuse that outfit for anything else! It was the one, the only—

Seeraa-fuku! Sailor uniform!

The outfit Petralka was wearing was the quintessential Japanese uniform, worn by female students across the nation.

Then, she slid her right hand into her pocket and pulled something out. It was a little bit bigger than the palm of her hand—a makeup mirror set with an elaborate pattern of gems. She raised the compact high and shouted, “Magical... CHARGE!!”

That very instant, a windstorm sprang up from who knew where and Petralka’s body was wreathed in light. Her school uniform began to disappear piece by piece, and although the backlighting ensured it wasn’t possible to see anything really titillating, it was obvious enough that she wasn’t wearing a thread, the outline of her body clearly visible. Then that mysterious breeze blew in a new set of clothes for her.

The transformation was the work of a moment. I blinked, and Petralka was dressed in something completely different. She was wearing a leotard like a ballerina’s, which followed the lines of her body closely. Along with that was a skirt that stopped just above her thighs. The whole outfit was riddled with decorations, and it didn’t spare the skin at her shoulders and legs, which was almost pearlescent. The compact was now hanging at her neckline, as if to underline its role as the catalyst.

“Say—your—prayers!” Petralka said, pointing at me with a motion so crisp I felt like it should have come with a sound effect.

And then...

“Great! Cut!”

Minori-san’s voice suddenly interrupted us.

The tension that had hung in the air instantly vanished.

“All right, everyone, time for a break! We’ll do the next scene in thirty minutes!”

“Yes, ma’am!” came a chorus of student voices.

The kids were dressed about like usual, but today they weren’t holding notebooks or pens. Instead they carried basic cameras, lighting equipment, and shotgun microphones. Everything necessary to do some filming.

“Nice work, Master,” Myusel said, coming up to me at a gentle jog. She seemed to have judged now to be the perfect moment for a word.

Incidentally, Myusel wasn’t dressed in her usual outfit—either her maid uniform or her going-out dress—either. She wore a sailor uniform just like Petralka’s.

As good as her maid outfit and the suit she wore to school both looked, there was an innocent freshness about a student uniform that I deeply appreciated. The blazer gave her the look of—how do I put this?—a refined adult, and that was nice, but I have to say, it’s hard to let go of the sailor uniform—the style of styles, the classic of classics.

“Shinichi-sama, those clothes... They look wonderful on you.”

“Well, uh... I mean, I’m pretty used to them...” I smiled just a bit awkwardly.

I was wearing plaid pants and a blazer, looking like a student myself. Basically, the guy’s version of the sailor uniform that Petralka and Myusel were wearing. A perfectly normal, unremarkable bit of clothing—at least if you came from Earth. To Myusel, it must have had the savor of something otherworldly.

Um... also, I know it’s kind of ironic for me to be saying I was “used to wearing” a uniform after I had refused to go to school for so long.

“R-Really though, Myusel, the uniform looks great on you, too.”

“You mean it?” Myusel asked, her pale cheeks tinting rose.

“Sure I do. You look adorable. I’m almost head over heels already.”

Myusel was pretty darn cute to start with, the perfect model for a school uniform.

“’Course, I think you look good no matter what you’re wearing,” I said.

“Oh! Th............... Thank you very much!” The red color spread right up to the tips of her ears. “That makes me v... very happy!”

She clasped both her hands to her chest as if giving her outfit a hug. It was an invigorating motion, causing me to go all moe right then and there.

“I didn’t know what I’d do if... If I looked weird in this...”

“Oh, you like the outfit that much?”

“Yes. Or rather...” Her voice dropped almost to a whisper, and she said somewhat hesitantly, “This outfit... it makes a pair with yours, doesn’t it?”

“I guess you could say that. They come from the same school.” I smiled.

The boys’ and girls’ uniforms had their differences, but the basic plaid pattern was the same, and the colors complemented each other. I guess I had just figured that was how uniforms were; I hadn’t really thought of them as a “pair.”

“I guess you could use that word if you wanted.”

“I’m very happy,” Myusel repeated, smiling shyly.

Yaaargh! This girl is sooo cute!

“If I went to your country wearing this, do you think I would fit in?”

“Er... yeah, I think you’d be all right,” I said.

We might have to do something about those pointy half-elf ears, but then we wouldn’t be talking about the outfit anymore.

“That’s wonderful!” Myusel whispered, looking at the ground to hide her blush.

On that note, I hadn’t been back to Japan since I arrived in this world, and maybe it was about time I went back for a while, just to see for myself what the new trends were. Maybe Myusel would like it if I could bring her with me when I went.

One thing that worried me, though, was that if I wasn’t careful about going back, I could find myself in all kinds of trouble with the elements of the Japanese government that didn’t appreciate me taking matters into my own hands.

As I was thinking about all this...

“Shinichi!” Petralka called, coming over to me. “What do you think? Does this suit us?”

All the high drama of earlier was gone from her face—instead she looked practically giddy, spinning to show off the thoroughly decorated outfit.

Ooh!

Her skirt billowed, revealing her bare thighs...

“Well, does it look good?”

“Y... Yeah, it does.”

Maybe a little too good.

My gaze was especially captured by the whiteness of her absolute territory. In the transformation scene earlier, just based on the outline of her body, you would assume she was naked, but of course she was wearing a leotard. And frankly, to a guy, that was a lot more arousing than just straight nudity.

Er... But forget about all that.

“Why did you pause just now?” Petralka asked, puffing out her cheeks.

Y-Your thighs, Your Majesty. Your absolute territory...

Not, of course, answers I could actually give.

“Oh, I just, you know. I was a little surprised. That outfit really does look good on you.”

That was the best I could do for now. And it wasn’t untrue.

“Is that so? Very good, then! Mm!”

Petralka nodded in satisfaction. Myusel smiled shyly.

I looked at the two girls and thought back on the several tumultuous days we had just endured.

YouTube.

The Japanese have a habit of mispronouncing it as Yoh-Tsubé, but regardless, I hardly need to introduce the world-famous video sharing website. (Incidentally, I’ve heard that the Tube part is a reference to television.)

Anyway, the site is a really simple way to upload video files to the internet and share your clips with users around the world. People all over the globe are making videos pretty much 24/7 and sharing them on the web. You can find anything from an anime theme song you vaguely remember to battlefield footage of exploding bombs.

Nothing could be simpler. Nothing at all.

And that’s why, consciously or not, mistakes happen.

The day Matoba-san had burst in saying there was trouble, we used the mansion’s computer to watch the video file he had brought.

It showed a soccer match, of a kind I had figured would give any actual soccer players a heart attack. It was absurd: yes, they were on a soccer field kicking a soccer ball, but the similarities pretty much ended there. Giants were appearing out of the ground, the ball was bursting into flame because of the incredible air resistance, and when someone scored a goal the shockwave rippled through the stadium. And then there were the peed-off JSDF soldiers (okay, mostly Minori-san) firing guns at the ball.

I had been there, and yet watching it like this, I couldn’t help wondering who had done the special effects. It didn’t seem real.

“But who would have...?” I asked, turning my gaze to one corner of the video. There, you could see numbers that changed every one-hundredth of a second. A timecode. Common enough on recorded videos.

“We don’t know who the culprit is yet,” Matoba-san said, “but we suspect they used file-sharing software.”

“Oh, you mean—”

Like Win** or Sha**. Programs developed with the goal of allowing people to share computer files with every stranger on the internet. Apparently these things started as simple research projects, but then some bad eggs started using them to distribute copies of copyrighted works. Okay—lots and lots of bad eggs. Worse, some people even developed viruses that could search your computer files at will and use file-sharing software to propagate them around the internet. Talk about trouble.

The point is, important confidential information could be taken from someone’s computer even if they didn’t want it to be.

Obviously, government offices had pretty stiff restrictions on the use of software like that, but they couldn’t control what employees did with their own computers. So some public servant goes home with secret work-related stuff, fires up his PC, and suddenly the information is leaked.

It was a common problem, and it looked like it had happened again.

“In any event, the web is in an uproar about this.”

“It broke the internet, huh?”

“Ah, yes, that is what you say these days when everyone seems focused on one specific thing, isn’t it? Yes. The internet is broken. As you can see, the video features both a timecode and the JSDF...”

“So people are claiming that proves that it’s real film taken by the military?”

“Indeed.” Matoba-san nodded, looking absolutely exhausted. “The prime minister and many other officials seem less interested in the leak than in finding whoever caused it.”

“Eager for a scapegoat, huh?” I smirked.

Something big happens, and the first impulse isn’t to clean up the mess, but to find someone to blame. Well, I guess it’s not just politicians and bureaucrats who do that.

“Answering the public reaction to the video has gone on the back burner. Anyway, there would be no way they could stop the spread of the video at this point even if they wanted to. I agree that determining the cause of the leak is important, but if we let this go on, we won’t be able to keep people fooled much longer.”

Like words once they left your mouth, you couldn’t take back information that had gone up on the internet. If somebody saved a copy somewhere, then no matter how carefully you got rid of every instance you could find, that saved file could be used to start the whole thing up again.

“Already, certain military devotees have analyzed the images and declared that they show the real JSDF. Based on the equipment and unit insignia, they’ve already begun to identify the exact unit involved, as well.”

“Shoot... They’re no slouches, are they?”

On the internet, people with particular obsessions worked so quickly and persistently that you wondered where they were hiding the rest of the time. I suspected they really could identify the particular unit, based on minor details that would completely elude the average layperson.

After that, one thing would lead to another.

“So,” I said, looking at Matoba-san again, “you’ve come to find out if there’s something I can do.”

“Exactly. Otherwise we’re in a bit of a deadlock,” Matoba-san said. “I’m glad you’re so quick to understand. It’s hard to believe you’re a former home security guard.”

“...Are you mocking me?”

“Just speaking my mind.” Matoba-san’s already narrow eyes squinted even narrower, a dry smile crossing his face.

It would have been simple enough to point out that this wasn’t our responsibility—and frankly, it wasn’t our problem.

But then again, we had no way of knowing what would happen to Amutech if the Japanese government found itself unable to keep this other world a secret. In the worst-case scenario, I might be forcibly sent back to Japan and the JSDF might be evacuated, after which America or China, say, might try to assert a claim on the Eldant Empire. It seemed likely that all of that would mean the dismantling of Japan’s speartip organization, Amutech.

And that meant I might never see Myusel, Petralka, Elvia, Brooke, or Cerise again. I might lose everyone I had come to care about in this world.

That was one thing I was desperate to avoid.

“But can’t you just say that the video is a fake? Made up?”

But then, a bumbled cover-up could be worse than nothing at all. Right now, people still didn’t know where exactly the video had come from, so if the government were to suddenly blurt out “That video isn’t real!”, it would be as good as authenticating it. Like a date and signature.

Government: “Th-That thing isn’t real! It’s fake! C-Completely and totally fabricated!”

Random Citizen: “Oh. So it was a hoax all along. Okay, then.”

Said nobody ever.

On the other hand, if the government were to just stand back and watch, the rumor might take on a life of its own. People would keep adding to the story, and somewhere in all the fantasy, the truth might just get mixed in, too.

“How long has it been since the leak was confirmed?” Minori-san asked.

“About five days. It exploded on Twitter around the third day.”

“Ah...”

And there it was. Twitter, once again at the center of the storm. Some people referred to the site as an “idiot detector” due to its tendency to burst into flame anytime someone said something stupid or bragged about doing something wrong. First file-sharing software, and now Twitter? Weren’t these bureaucrats ready for anything in the digital age?

I guess the Salt and Pepper Brigade never fully grasped either what made the net so useful—or so dangerous. That was why no matter what happened, they always found themselves on the back foot.

But whatever the case...

“If we don’t do something, this is going to get out of hand,” I said.

We didn’t just have to do something—we had to do it quickly. People couldn’t be allowed to know that this world really existed......................................................................................................... Really existed?

“Fiction and nonfiction,” I muttered. Then I said, “Matoba-san.”

“Yes? Have you thought of a plan?” He looked at me, but his face said he wasn’t expecting much.

I adopted a thoughtful look and (although I didn’t have much confidence myself) said, “Maybe we could turn this world into... fiction.”

“Huh?” Minori-san’s eyes went wide.

“What do you mean by that?” Matoba-san asked, leaning forward slightly.

“The video everyone’s watching is real, obviously,” I said, trying to get my thoughts together even as I spoke. My light-novel-author dad always said that the best way to turn a half-formed idea into reality was to try to explain it to someone else. “But what if it were a real part of a fake video?”

Minori-san and Matoba-san both looked at me uncomprehendingly.

“In other words, tell people that what got leaked is part of a movie. The timecode, the presence of the JSDF—you can explain it all by pretending they’re just characters in a new film.”

Matoba-san still didn’t look quite sure, but Minori-san grasped what I was getting at.

“I see!” she said. (Well, she was an otaku at heart.)

“You remember that movie Clo***field?” I said. “It was a pseudo-documentary—a movie done in a documentary style.”

This meant presenting the movie as though it had been taken with a recording device, in order to give it a heightened sense of realism. (Sometimes this was called a “found-footage-style film.”)

My idea involved reversing the formula: the extremely convincing quality of the video would make it that much more plausible that it was actually a pseudo-documentary.

“But what about the magic?” Minori-san asked.

“CG effects for our movie, of course. If we make sure the fake footage contains obviously CG stuff, people will think it was all just special effects.”

It was hard to make fake things look real, but it was easy to make real things look fake.

“Say, Matoba-san, what about the voices in the video?”

“As you can see. The magic rings don’t work via machines, so the dialogue is all in the Eldant language. Something else the internet is more than a little excited about...”

“Make that part of the production, too, then.”

Nowadays, every time some aliens or alternate-dimensional humans show up in a movie, someone makes up a language for them that the actors have to speak. Especially in pseudo-documentaries.

“But does this suggest that you intend to create... a theatrical feature?” Matoba-san asked doubtfully. “Isn’t there some concern about maintaining consistency?”

“Sure. But listen,” Minori-san said, “we don’t make a full movie, just a making-of thing. ‘Peek behind the scenes!’ That’ll convince people, and it will be a lot cheaper and less time-consuming than screwing around making an actual movie.”

“Then later we say that budget or rights or whatever killed the thing.” I grinned.

I’d heard (again from my light-novel-author dad) that that sort of thing was common enough. How many times have we seen people get excited because Hollywood said they were going to turn some anime or manga into a movie, only for the project to languish in production hell for years and years? If it happened one more time here, no one would be surprised.

“Matoba-san. Could you get us some film gear?”

“Hmm...” Matoba-san crossed his arms and made a thoughtful noise. “I’ll manage it somehow. If all we need is a little equipment, things should stay fairly cheap. If I tell the higher-ups that we’ll take care of the video problem, I don’t think they’ll raise a fuss.”

“Oh, and I need some voice actors, if you can wrangle them.”

“Voice actors?”

“You might have to pretend you need them to collaborate with the JSDF on something. That means maybe you’ll have to tell them that the production has the blessing of the Japanese government. And a government production might not get away with just subtitling the Eldant stuff. You wouldn’t have to bring the VAs over here or anything.”

I imagined Myusel or Petralka or Elvia being dubbed by this or that popular actress. Ahhh! It was enough to make me giddy!

Er... This definitely didn’t have anything to do with guilt. I was just really dedicated to finding the most effective way to make our video believable. I was definitely not taking this as an opportunity to shake hands with my favorite VAs, get their autographs, or whatever. Not thinking about that for a second!

...Okay, I know I sound kind of unconvincing at this point.

“Fine,” Matoba-san said. “I’ll work it out with my superiors.”

“Yes, please,” I said.

Yesss! At least we would have a way to film.

“But Shinichi-kun, what about a script?”

“That’s a very good question...”

Yes, it was just a making-of thing, but without a story, no one would know what to say. Try to improvise, and things always break down.

Still, that meant we basically had a week or so to go from story concept to finished script...

“Maybe you could write it, Shinichi-kun?”

“Uh, maybe not...”

I mean, yes, my dad was a light novelist. But I had never written a script or a book. I was a 100% consumer-side otaku.

I had seen my dad doing serious battle with deadlines more than once, and I had an idea that it wasn’t a lot of fun. That left me not very eager to try it myself.

Besides, writing a completely original story and writing something that cohered with an already existing video demanded different skills. (Something else my dad said.)

I mean, it was practically a derivative work, and—

“Hey...”

That’s right.

I knew the perfect person. Someone very close to me.

“It’s going to be all right, Minori-san.”

“Huh?”

“I have an ace up my sleeve.”

Then I gave her an exuberant thumbs-up.

It was the day after I had spoken to Minori-san and Matoba-san about the video problem.

Classes were over, and I was in the school library talking to my “ace.”

“Eduardo, have you ever felt like you’ve got a story inside you that you would love to write?”

“That’s a good question...”

Eduardo was sitting across from me. This is the guy I mentioned: the one who was totally obsessed with translating, to the point that he actually made the jump into fan fiction.

I had since realized that it had been less than a month since we had imported the anime and light novel versions of Order of the Dark Knights, which meant Eduardo had binge-watched the anime, read through the entire novel, and produced his sequel all within that time span.

That meant he had to be a pretty quick writer, right? That was what gave me the idea to let him handle the script for our “movie.”

Granted, no one person is good at everything, so there were no promises that he would be able to manage it.

“You know... I’d like to do something with magical girls.”

“A magical girl piece, huh?”

He was in deep.

“Like Rental☆Madoka or Prepure.”

“Ooh! Rental☆Madoka! Now that’s a great series!”

“Isn’t it? Madoka is such a go-getter!”

“Mikan’s adorable, too!”

“When Minami-san got her head cut off, I had no idea what was going to happen, but—”

“But bringing her back as an employee at the ghost company? What a twist!”

All of a sudden, we were just two excited otaku.

Wait. This wasn’t the time to be getting all moe about Rental☆Madoka!

“Uh, anyway. Any other ideas you’ve had?”

“I’d like to do a school series.”

Hm. Understandable enough.

“But you would want to set it in this world,” I said, folding my arms in thought. “I mean, there are plenty of school dramas that don’t actually show any school. As long as the main characters are students, I guess... Or would you have it so that there was a normal school over here?” I continued to ruminate. “I guess schools in fantasy settings are common enough these days. Meaning... you have a heroine who passes for a normal student, but in reality she’s a magical girl who fights bad guys.”

“Yeah, I see.”

“But during the fighting, the bad guy lays a trap, and uses this out-of-control magic to open a door to another dimension...”

“Mm-hm, mm-hm.”

“And the boy who appears from it...”

“A boy, got it.” Eduardo was writing down my ramblings as quickly as I could think them up.

“Behind him is an army no one’s ever seen before.”

“An army...”

“The magical girl thinks the army is a bunch of magic-users the bad guy summoned from another world or something, but she’s wrong. It’s actually the JSDF, and they’re not enemies. They just wandered into that dimensional door. They can’t communicate with the magical girl, so there’s a fight... But then the guy who came with them helps explain things and clear up the misunderstanding. Hang on... But then how is the guy communicating with her? Okay. So it’s the reverse. The boy and the magical girl come from the same world, but in the past a similar accident sent him to this other world, and now he’s coming home. That’s why he can speak the languages of both worlds. Yeah. That’ll work.”

“That makes sense.”

“The problem is the magical girl... How do you think she became magical?”

“‘Became’ magical? What you mean?”

“I know magic is normal in this world, but if she just uses the same spells everyone else can, then she’s not really magical magical, you know?”

“You’re absolutely right!”

“The magic a magical girl uses needs to be... How do I put this? Way, way more powerful and versatile than whatever a normal person can do.”

“That’s a great idea!”

“Oh, just to be sure, but we can have her be one of those magical girls who transforms in order to use magic and fight the enemy, right?”

“We sure can!” Eduardo nodded.

In the grand scheme of magical girl shows, serious, darker battle pieces were relatively new, sort of a branch of the genre. But we wouldn’t worry about that.

“Let’s see... Why is our magical girl special... Hmm...” Eduardo drummed the table with his fingers as he spoke. “I’d like to have her make some kind of contract in order to gain her powers...”

“Yeah, exactly. You’ve got to have a scene where she resolves to fight. We definitely want a contract to mark that out. For sure.”

“I know, right? But who or what does she make the contract with?”

“A contract... Contract... How about some dark corporation?”

“Wouldn’t that be pretty much the exact plot of Rental☆Madoka?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I said.

“Hmmm...”

Eduardo and I sat with our arms crossed, staring at the ceiling.

The way we were sitting there muttering was pretty much the image of a manga artist or a novelist with writer’s block, but unfortunately we were just amateurs. We could mutter all we wanted, and it wouldn’t bring us any ideas.

“How about a break?” I suggested at last.

“Yes. I’m just going to go wash my face.” Eduardo nodded, then headed out of the library, looking very tired. Watching him leave, I contemplated how hard it actually was to come up with an original story on the spot.

“Nothing less from you, Shinichi-kun.”

The words came from Minori-san, who was sitting a short distance away and had been keeping an eye on our conversation. She sounded vaguely amused.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked warily.

“Just listen to the talk pour out of you. Come to think of it, your dad is a light novel author, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, talk,” I said wryly. “We didn’t actually achieve anything.”

“You think? It sounded to me like you came up with an entire world and a general plot outline.”

“A world? Buh. We came up with some characters. Now we have to try to shoehorn soccer in there somewhere as a form of ‘diplomacy.’”

What we really needed was a story that could accommodate magic, fantasy, and the JSDF. There were only so many scenarios that could handle all those ingredients. The story that popped into my head was about a Japanese guy who got spirited away to this other world and yadda yadda yadda.

“I did see my dad hashing things out with his editor,” I said. What kind of story and setting did they want? What kind of developments would make it believable? And who would need to show up in it?

According to my dad, there were basically two types of light novel authors. You have the inspired types, who get an idea out of thin air and then hammer out a couple hundred pages, going mostly by feel; and then you have the ones who value skill and experience, building up a world and a story through logic and background.

My dad was definitely the second type.

That meant all my life, I had seen him on long phone calls, fleshing out details with his editor, trying to produce a new story. I admit I was pretty confused the first time I heard him blandly declare, “Okay, considering where we want to go with this, I’ll kill off ten or twelve people. Sound good?”

“I guess on some level, I’m imitating my dad’s working style,” I said. “So maybe it does make a difference that he’s a writer. But seriously, it’s just kind of monkey-see, monkey-do.”

“I only ever read, myself, I don’t write, so I think it’s pretty amazing.”

“Gee... I wonder.”

I’ve got to admit, it felt pretty good to be complimented. Especially by a gorgeous older woman like Minori-san. I felt the edges of my mouth tug into a smile.

“I’m sure if you tried, Minori-san you could—”

“If I were capable of writing word one, believe me, I would have done that story featuring you as a total bottom ages ago.”

..............................Thank you, God, from the bottom of my heart, that Minori-san only ever reads.

“Oh, hey, on a different subject...” Minori-san leaned forward slightly. “How are you going to handle costumes?”

“Huh? I figured I’d get Matoba-san to find something that looked about right...”

It was pretty easy these days to go to a store and get cosplay outfits.

“But you’re going to use them in an original production. Isn’t that asking for trouble?”

“Er... I guess you’re right.”

Most of the costumes sold in stores were based on popular anime and manga and games. In other words, if we used them as-is, we would just be ripping somebody off. Of course, it might be possible to do a few simple alterations to make them look new, but... supposing we botched it? The jig would be up then and there, especially in comparison with the convincing (because real) JSDF uniforms and Eldant outfits.

The chances of something going wrong seemed even higher with a magical girl show.

“Say, uh...” Minori-san looked at me beseechingly from behind her glasses. W-Wait a minute... When did she learn to do something so cute?!

As I sat there moe-ing out, Minori-san said, “Maybe I could—I mean, if it’s all right, maybe I could make the costumes.”

“What, you?”

“I don’t think I could handle all of them by myself, but maybe the ones for the main characters. The stuff that’s going to be on-screen a lot. You know how close-fitting the outfits in magical girl shows tend to be. They need to be tailored for the person who’s going to wear them, or they’ll look wrong.”

“Ahh... Yeah, you’re right there.”

“And think of all the problems we might have if we just used pre-made stuff. Girls’ school uniforms or whatever.”

“True enough.”

“Anyway, this is your big chance, right? Aren’t you just dying to dress Myusel in some Gothic Lolita getup, or Elvia in a shrine maiden’s robe?”

I caught my breath.

Here was a girl who knew what she was talking about......!

No, no, no.

But hey... there was an idea here.

I shuddered to realize the unplumbed depths of Minori-san’s otaku-dom. With her around, I (as general manager) could stick to general managing, and not have to get down into the weeds. Right?

But let’s put that aside for a second.

“Minori-san, are you...”

“Yes?”

“...a layer?”

“Uh-huh.”

She nodded assiduously.

Layer. That is to say, a cosplayer.

The term refers to people who like to make and wear clothing that looks like the stuff worn by characters in anime and manga. Now I remembered seeing a blog somewhere on the net that mentioned how some layers like to imagine dressing up other people, or enjoy coordinating outfits that others then wear.

“Shinichi-kun, does this mean you don’t do cosplay?”

“I can’t say I ever have.”

Think about it: What would be the point of a home security guard like me doing cosplay? Whatever else it might be, cosplay normally involves being seen by other people.

“Aw, it’s fun,” Minori-san said. “You can become someone else.”

She did make it sound kind of nice.

“Someone else...” I murmured.

Someone else. Someone other than who you are now. A temporary escape from reality.

An image of Petralka flashed through my mind.

“Cosplay is a good way to refresh yourself, too, right?” I asked. “To chase the blues away, you might say.”

“Sure,” Minori-san said. Then a bit of a pained smile crossed her face. “In fact, that was mostly why I did it.”

To become another person... to feel differently.

What if I were to suggest that Petralka try cosplay? It looked like she was having a rough time with the job of being empress, like the position was threatening to overwhelm her. If I could give her an opportunity to forget about her royal duties, even for just a little while, wouldn’t that be a good thing? Then again, it might be too much to ask Minori-san to do both the costumes for the movie and a cosplay outfit for Petralka.

Wait. So what if Petralka were in the—

“That’s it!”

“What’s it?”

“Er, nothing,” I said. I hadn’t meant to say anything about it out loud. “Speaking of becoming someone else, Minori-san, what kind of cosplay do you do?”

Her answer surprised me: “I do men and men only.”

Men only? Did she mean, like, male characters? With that chest?! And that face?!

“How could you waste such a golden opportunity?!”

She could’ve at least been a maid. But there were cat ears to consider. Gothic loli! Even a shrine maiden outfit! Or the evergreen “bikini armor”...

“I’m sure any of those things would look—”

“Oh, hey, I wanted to mention,” Minori-san said, interrupting me. “The girls’ school uniforms in the movie—I think red plaid for the skirt is definitely the way to go.” She clenched her fist to emphasize her point.

I imagined Myusel in a red-plaid skirt and almost reflexively clenched my fist in the exact same way.

But wait just a minute...

Huh? Did she just change the subject on me?

And... hadn’t this happened before?

Was I in danger of stepping on a land mine?

I was just giving Minori-san my most perplexed look when—

“Shinichi-sensei!”

Eduardo rushed into the library, excitedly calling my name. Sometimes the Japanese say “I’ll go wash my face” just as a figure of speech, but apparently he had really meant it, because he dashed back in with water still dripping from his hair. As if he had been in such a hurry, he hadn’t even had time to dry off.

What could have him so excited?

“What if the party to the contract and the thing that creates the interdimensional door are both the bad guy?!”

“Huh...? Oh... Oh, I get it.” It took me a second, but I quickly grasped what Eduardo was getting at. He was talking about our magical girl discussion. He must have had a flash of inspiration while he was busy washing.

“I like that,” I said. “When it comes to plot, simple is best. And then everything wraps up neatly at the end. Good stuff!”

“Yes, sir!” Eduardo nodded happily. He sat down across from me again, picked up his pen, and started scribbling something at a dizzying speed. It was like he could barely wait for his hand to form each individual character.

“So... and then...” he muttered, the pen whizzing. I could see where someone might think it looked a little weird. But I could see his mouth turning up; he looked like he was genuinely enjoying himself.

Yeah. This is great, I thought. I was all about helping this movie succeed.

Of course, because the entire “movie” thing was just a ruse, we were never going to film the complete script. I had already made sure Eduardo knew that. This was just groundwork so we could do a partial film, like a preview or trailer. But even so, he was completely caught up in the passion of creating a story.

And so I was especially eager to make this something he would be proud to be a part of—even if there wasn’t going to be much of it.

There’s no time like the present: that day in the library, Eduardo and I worked out the broad contours of the story and plot, not to mention the setting and main characters. Then I told Eduardo that, although I knew it was a lot to ask, I wanted him to pick his favorite scenes and turn them into a script in the next couple of days.

This was partly because we didn’t have much time to begin with, but it was also because Eduardo could barely contain his eagerness to move ahead with the project. My dad told me that when you’re really feeling your writing, everything comes easily, and you’re desperate to get your draft down on paper. He says it’s great. I figured that was more or less how Eduardo was feeling at that moment. Well, far be it from me to rain on his parade. I figured I would just let him pound out as much as he could.

So anyway, I left Eduardo in the library to plug away at the script, while Minori-san and I headed for Eldant Castle. The people at the castle would have been within their rights to kick us out for showing up with such a sudden request for an audience, but maybe the empress had some extra time on her hands, because we were led into a familiar audience chamber.

There were several such rooms of varying sizes in the castle, but we were brought into the smallest one, the place frequently used for personal meetings. Of course, “smallest” is relative: it was still almost twenty mats in size.

“I’m very sorry for dropping in on you, Your Majesty,” I said, bowing humbly to Petralka, who was already seated on the throne.

“We keep telling you not to act so distant with us,” Petralka said, looking less than thrilled. “And we also must apologize, for before.”

I assumed that by before she meant the time when she had disappeared, leaving me unable to make my morning report. Maybe the fact that she had made time for us today on such short notice was her way of apologizing.

“At any rate, Shinichi. What is it you wanted to talk about?”

“About that, Your Majesty...”

Petralka cut me off. “Again, we keep asking you to use our name, Shinichi. Nor need you speak so formally. Will you not act with us as you usually do?” She pursed her lips like a pouting child.

I guessed there was nobody around to be offended by my speaking casually to the empress. Where was the harm in relaxing a little?

“In that case... Petralka.” I gave a little cough, then said, “Enter into a contract with me and become a magical girl!”

“...What?”

“Stop that!”

Whack. Minori-san gave me a karate chop to the back of my head.

“Awww...”

“Just be glad I used my hand and not my Beretta.”

“Sorry...”

Sometimes, the best thing you can do is apologize.

I bowed to Petralka, who was blinking in mystification—come to think of it, she hadn’t seen Rental☆Madoka yet, had she?—and said, “Um, all joking aside, I want to film a live-action drama.”

“‘Live-action drama’?” Petralka furrowed her brow, but sounded intrigued.

“Uh-huh. I mean, well, it’s a story or whatever. Made up, basically. But it’s not animated. It’s real—you’ve seen live-action movies, haven’t you, Petralka?”

“Do you mean tokusatsu, perchance?” the empress asked, cocking her head and invoking the Japanese word for special effects-laden TV shows and movies.

“Yeah, more or less.”

“They involve transforming and fighting evil.”

“Well, there’s plenty of other stuff, too.”

Granted, transforming superheroes make up the bulk of tokusatsu shows. It only then dawned on me that although we had brought videos of Kamen R**er, sentai superhero stuff, and Ult**man, we hadn’t yet imported anything that didn’t involve transforming. K-tai In***tigator 7 or the live-action version of Sengoku BAS*RA, that sort of thing. It was easiest to import the series with the longest runs... But never mind that.

“And what is this ‘film’ you speak of?”

“Oh. Uhh...”

Our magic interpreter rings could start to seem all-powerful, but when you used a word for which the other person simply had no concept, it was communicated as-is, without interpretation, and sometimes this sort of thing happened.

“It means I want us—or really, the people of the Eldant Empire—to make it. ‘Filming’ is what you call making a tokusatsu show.”

“Really?!” Petralka leaned forward on her throne. “You wish for us to make a tokusatsu?!”

“Well, strictly speaking, it’s not so much a tokusatsu as a live-action movie.”

“Ho. Very interesting, that.” Petralka cocked her head. “But is it all right?”

“Huh? Is what all right?”

I didn’t know what she was asking, but Prime Minister Zahar, who stood next to her, explained.

“Such things are the special export of your Ja-pan, are they not, Shinichi-dono? Are you sure it’s safe to reveal to us the secrets of their creation?”

“............Ah.”

I finally understood. Otaku goods like this were the very lifeblood of the general entertainment company, Amutech. The company’s whole modus operandi was to import anime and manga and games from Japan, sell them, and put the profits back into the business. If the Eldant people learned to make their own otaku stuff, how would Amutech make money? That was what Petralka was asking.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s fine. The methods aren’t actually that easy to imitate. Think of it as being like our last little ‘festival.’ Just enjoy the creation process.”

The “festival” I was referring to was the soccer tournament. In point of fact, Matoba-san had insisted I not reveal the video leak to the Eldant side. If they started asking questions about why the Japanese government was trying to keep the Eldant Empire’s existence a secret from its own people... well, there would be a lot of very difficult questions to answer.

I wasn’t especially happy to be effectively deceiving Petralka and the others. Setting aside the specific concerns of the Japanese government, though, I was sure the Eldant Empire wouldn’t be happy to hear that they had to be hidden, like dangerous animals or something. So for the time being, I went along with Matoba-san’s request.

Back to the conversation.

“Very well. You have our cooperation,” Petralka said, smiling with evident pleasure. “Is there anything you will need, besides the arrangement of personnel?”

“Yeah, about that. There just happens to be something I want to request of you specifically, Petralka. That’s really why I came here today.”

“What is it? Will you be needing a new building or something?”

“Uh, in the movie...” I took a deep breath and then let it all out at once: “I want you to play the heroine.”

“.........................................................................What?”

I knew it would be a surprising request, but it took quite a long time for Petralka to answer. Her big green eyes had squinted with astonishment and confusion, and her mouth hung slightly open. Finally she managed, “The heroine...?”

“Right.” I nodded. “The female lead.”

“You wish us to—?”

“Uh-huh.”

“....................Why?” she gasped. She probably never expected to be asked to take part herself.

“Shinichi-dono,” Prime Minister Zahar said, looking troubled. “This is highly unorthodox—”

But this wasn’t the time to back down. This was when I needed to push.

“I gave a lot of thought to who should play the main character,” I said, adopting a serious expression. “This is the first movie in the history of the Eldant Empire, right? The lead has to be played by someone who reflects the importance of this moment. I think the people need to see Her Majesty the Empress in this role.”

This wasn’t exactly a total lie, but it was a bit of a fudge to make sure Petralka would go along with things.

The real reason I wanted her to play the main character was entirely personal. I pictured her sleeping in that wooden box, weeping as she dreamed of her parents. I could hardly stand thinking of it. I desperately wanted to do something for her.

If that meant helping her clear her head by becoming someone else for a while, well, maybe that would do.

At least maybe she could stop running away to cry by herself.

Obviously, if I were to say any of that to her face, Petralka would demand, “Are you making fun of us?” or say, “Don’t treat us like a child!” I was sure of it.

So I covered myself with a lie.

That kind of lie can be forgiven... right?

“Hmm...”

Petralka lapsed into silent thought. For a moment, I was afraid she had seen through me already.

“Not Myusel?”

Why would Petralka bring her up?

“Well, Shinichi?”

“Er, I’m sorry—what are you talking about?”

“Have you come to ask us because Myusel turned you down?”

“Huh?”

My eyes went wide, and I found I had no idea how to respond. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.

As a matter of fact, yes, I had intended to ask Myusel to be part of the production, but for a totally different role than the one in which I wanted to cast Petralka. I had never gotten further than picturing what a joy it would be to film the two beautiful girls laughing and chattering together.

“Hrm...”

Petralka appeared about to say something else, but when she saw how surprised I looked, she stopped in annoyance. She looked away from me and put her chin on her hands. She looked like a pouting child.

As for me, I replied, as gently but as clearly as I could, “No, Petralka. I’m asking you because I want you to do it.” And that was no lie. “I have asked Myusel to appear in the movie, but she has a completely different part from you. I haven’t asked anyone but you to play the heroine. We’ve even worked to make the script something you’ll find easy to play.”

That was true, too.

Of course, I had to be careful not to scare off Eduardo, so all I had said was, “Let’s make the main girl kind of young-looking, but also strong of spirit!”

“I don’t want anyone else for this part. I need you, Petralka.”

She was quiet for a moment, not looking at me. But finally she said, “Is... Is that so?”

For some reason, her pale cheeks had turned a blushing red.

Okay, flashback over.

Things had been progressing smoothly since all that happened. Matoba-san got us the equipment in good time, and the students at the school were quick to learn how to use it. They were accustomed to the PCs at school, and the acquaintance seemed to transfer readily to other electronic gadgets. Frankly, they were a lot better with the equipment than Matoba-san himself was.

I guess that’s just how readily teens absorb information, whether or not they’re used to computers or whatever.

And that brings us right up to the present moment.

I was going all over the capital, filming our “movie” with Petralka, Myusel, Minori-san, Elvia, and the students from the school.

Our magical-girl heroine, of course, was portrayed by Petralka.

She wore a costume tailor-made by Minori-san, and had really embraced her role as a magical girl who does battle with the JSDF. Yes, sometimes her expression was a little stiff, or her delivery a little stilted, but what could you expect from someone who had been thrown into the production so suddenly? We could edit things later to suggest that that was just the way the character was, or that the situation demanded it.

In any event, the filming was going nicely.

So nicely, in fact, that we were all getting pretty tired.

We took breaks between shoots, of course, but that was also when we set up for the next round of filming, so the activity was constant. Petralka had just disappeared someplace on the grounds that she had to prepare for the next scene.

And so I found myself, as I tried to get an overall sense of how things were going, wandering over to our director, who was busy barking orders. Myusel, dressed in a school uniform, was with the director.

And who was this director, you ask?

“How’s it going, Minori-san?”

Oh, don’t act so shocked.

Minori-san was discussing something with some elf and dwarf students as they all huddled around a computer to review the footage they’d just shot.

You might wonder why we had Minori-san in the director’s chair. Well, it was because she had actual filming and editing experience.

Today’s cosplayers do more than just dress up. They rent studios and have photo sessions, make “image videos” that they burn to DVD or upload to video sharing sites... And above all, Minori-san had apparently made a simple movie with her friends at one point.

“There’s a lot of options for video editing software these days. It’s easy to just do it on a computer.” (Minori-san’s assessment.)

I guess that was also part of the reason why the video leak had occurred in the first place. But forget about that. I had decided to let Minori-san handle all the details.

“Ah, Shinichi-kun,” Minori-san said, waving me over with a smile. “I like how this is going. You said you weren’t very confident, but I think you’re doing great.”

“Ha ha,” I said, offering a dry laugh to cover my embarrassment.

It was true: as you may have noticed from the earlier scene, even I was appearing in our little film.

It was all well and good to cast Petralka in the lead, but the question was who would play across from her. It was going to be a pretty platonic role—no kissing or anything—but whoever filled it would still be spending a lot of time with Petralka, and would naturally have plenty of opportunities to talk to her.

Here in the Eldant Empire, a chance to get close to Her Majesty the Empress was literally the royal road to social advancement, so there were a whole lot of students who were eager to be considered for the part—or, well, more accurately, there were a whole lot of parents saying “Cast my child!” There was more than a little argument about who should get the part.

The problem was, if I cast a student, no matter who I picked, I would be inviting the resentment of every parent of every student I didn’t choose.

So who was there who was about Petralka’s age, but who didn’t have a part in all the politicking? That was the concern that led to my being picked for the part.

And so but anyway.

“The acting is decent, the production is smooth. I’d say things are going pretty well for our first movie.”

“Thank goodness,” I said, letting out a relieved breath.

I certainly didn’t expect a bunch of amateurs to manage to make a movie completely without a hitch, but if things were chugging along, that was the most I could ask for.

“I’m sure happy that Myusel’s outfit looks every bit as good as I imagined, too,” Minori-san said with a smile, glancing at the girl who now stood behind me.

“Th-Thank you very much,” Myusel said, smiling shyly. “It makes me... very happy somehow, to be wearing clothes from my master’s country.”

She says the sweetest things.

“Thanks yourself,” Minori-san said. “Think I could get some photos later?”

Of course, JSDF photographers were busy snapping pictures all throughout the filming process, so she obviously meant “for personal use.”

“The costume worked out pretty well for Elvia, too,” Minori-san said, still smiling. “I’m glad all that work on the skirt paid off.”

“All that work?” I said. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen Elvia in costume yet...

“Uh-huh,” Minori-san said, glancing around the set. She spotted the beast girl nearby and called out, “Elvia! C’mere a second!”

“Sure thing.”

When I saw Elvia rushing over to us... well, my heart skipped a beat.

She was wearing a sailor uniform just like Myusel and Petralka, but what really stole my attention was the tail poking out from her plaid skirt.

“I made sure there was an opening for her tail,” Minori-san said with a note of pride.

Dayum. This girl knows what’s going on.

“Y’ think it looks all right?” Elvia asked, but she was unmistakably pleased. In addition to the smile on her face, her fluffy tail started wagging.

Elvia normally wore clothes that exposed a lot of skin—including her shoulders and belly button—but this very age-appropriate sailor uniform had a definite charm of its own. Actually, it was almost startling how different she seemed in it.

The sailor uniform is by definition a summer outfit, so it has short sleeves—the wearer looks ready for some fun in the sun. Plus, Elvia’s skirt was on the short side, so the overall impression might normally seem a bit rough around the edges—but compared to her typical appearance, this outfit actually made her look very mature. Very much the studious female student. And I had zero objections to that.

“Yeah, I think it looks great.”

“You mean it?!” The tail started going faster and faster, whap whap whap whap whap.

Elvia was an easy personality to understand, if nothing else.

“This is my first time wearing something like this, and I kinda like it.”

She did a little spin right there in front of us. Each time she turned, a pair of black leggings was briefly visible. Yeah—very energizing. That’s the stuff.

“By the way, how do you feel about this for the transformation scene?” Minori-san asked, turning the liquid-crystal display toward me. On-screen was a still image of Petralka transforming, partially touched up with CGI.

That’s right: we were deliberately adding computer effects. Purposefully making an actual transformation scene look faked.

Petralka’s transformation was achieved using magic. That is, people just off-camera were using wind and light spells, while Petralka’s costumes had been designed to be easy to get into and out of quickly. That was the “transformation”: a quick change of clothes.

“I think it’s good. We have to be careful not to make it too obvious, or that would be suspicious in itself.”

“You’re right,” Minori-san said. “We’ll go with something like this, then.” She saved the image. Presumably they would do the rest of the frames later.

Incidentally, it was Loek and Romilda, leading teams of elf and dwarf students, who were responsible for the special effects (by which I mean magic). Given how readily (if sort of accidentally) they had replicated the crazy stuff from soccer shows with their spells, I showed them some magical-girl anime and asked if they could manage something that looked like that. And lo and behold, they had.

Anyway—

“Shinichi-kun, you need a different costume for the next scene. Go get changed,” Minori-san said, consulting a filming schedule on her computer.

“Oh, sure,” I said, starting off. It was only then that I realized Elvia and Myusel had disappeared somewhere along the line. Elvia might come and go, but it was unusual for Myusel to leave my side without saying anything. I wondered where she had gotten to.

Well, maybe she had needed to use the facilities. You know, the sort of thing she might not want to just announce. I decided not to worry too much.

“Uh... Oh, there it is.”

On a hill several minutes’ walk from the filming location, a changing area had been set up. A forest came right up to the foot of the hill, so some cloth had been draped from the branches to create a simple changing area. I checked my watch to find I didn’t have even five minutes left in our break. I had to hurry up and change.

Pressed for time, I pulled open the door (er, the sheet) of the changing room...

...and made a very startled noise.

As did Myusel, who was standing right in front of me, half-naked.

Her pale skin was gloriously visible, her legs white, her—oh! Her chest, surprisingly large, just like Petralka said, and—

NO! No! Now is not the time!

I suppose you saw this coming.

I had run smack into Myusel in the changing room.

Whenever I came as an impartial observer to this sort of scene in a manga or anime or whatever, I always felt like the hero or heroine didn’t have to get so bent out of shape about it, which they inevitably did. But now that it was happening to me personally, my head felt as hot as if someone had climbed into my brain and built a bonfire. I was definitely not in a position to say anything coherent.

Myusel reflexively clutched her familiar dress to herself, hiding her underwear-clad body, but her shoulders and thighs remained exposed.

And to top it all off...

“Huh? Shinichi-sama?”

As Myusel and I stood there, frozen, who should appear to size us up but Elvia.

She had already dispensed with her sailor suit, leaving her in the sports bra and sports shorts (?) she had been wearing underneath. Unlike Myusel, however, she had no impulse to hide her body, and finding me there didn’t seem to bother her at all.

Of course, I guess half-naked was par for the course for this girl.

Still, in my world, seeing someone in their underwear definitely created the excitement—to say nothing of the guilt—of seeing something you sort of shouldn’t.

“You here to change too, Shinichi-sama?”

“Er, no, I mean—I didn’t—I’m sor—”

“Ah. You’ve come at a good moment, Shinichi.”

The (all-too-predictable) hits just kept coming. It was Petralka.

She was wearing undergarments of her own—a camisole and shorts—but she also approached me with no sign of embarrassment, holding out a uniform.

“Help us. The ‘trans-for-may-shun scene’ happens in the space of a moment, but un-transforming has proven more time-consuming.”

Er, Your Majesty, would a little royal modesty be too much to ask?

Even as the thought crossed my mind, though, I remembered that in this world, nobles and royals had people help them change clothes all the time. When I first arrived here, Myusel had tried to help me change as if it were the most natural thing in the world, leading to an awkward moment.

But wait, wouldn’t you normally have someone of the same gender help you? A woman might conceivably help a man with his clothes, but the opposite was sexual harassment no matter how you sliced it—or was that just another bias that I brought over from my own world? Come to think of it, Edo-era baths were normally mixed-gender, so—wait, is that even relevant? Argh! This wasn’t making sense anymore!

“Ah... Er, I... I just...”

Three girls stood in front of me in their underwear.

I was a former home security guard (read: zero romantic history), and I was feeling distinctly overstimulated. It would have been more surprising if I hadn’t been pretty flustered. Myusel aside, though, Petralka and Elvia seemed perplexed as to why I was standing there frozen.

“What are you waiting for, Shinichi? Come here and help us.”

“Somethin’ the matter, Shinichi-sama?”

“Er, ah...”

It was no use. Wait, if you get that close to me I’ll gaaaaaakwaa w せ drftgy ふじこ lp?!

And so on and so forth. My internal monologue became a garbled mess.

“M-Master,” Myusel said, seeming to have determined to do something. I definitely felt like this was a big help. After the way we were introduced all that time ago, she had a sense of how people from my world felt when it came to changing clothes. The fact that she tried to cover herself when I stumbled in was proof of that. I was sure she could resolve this situation and save my neck.

“Myu—Myusel...”

Help me.

I unconsciously reached out my hand toward her.

“Master... If it’s what you desire, I...”

Her face was bright red now; she squeezed her eyes shut and clutched the dress even harder. Then, with one shaking hand, she began to lower it...

“Just a—!”

Wait, Myusel! I think there’s a grave misunderstanding here!

I swear I didn’t come here just to peep, or see you all naked, or whatever!

“I’m very, very sorrryyyy!” I howled, then I scrambled out of that place so fast I was practically falling over myself. In fact, I literally fell on my way out. I didn’t have the time to be getting up off the ground!

Ahhhhhhh. Talk about your panic situations.

I tumbled about ten meters, getting covered in leaf mold, until I rolled right out from among the trees and was finally able to sit up.

On reflection, the standard response to that situation would have just been to say “Sorry,” and turn around. But I was so frantic that I hadn’t even thought of that; in fact, I had gawked at the girls’ bare skin.

Arrgh. How embarrassing.

It was just—everyone reacted totally different from how I expected! Don’t heroines always scream when this happens in light novels and manga and anime? If they had been kind enough to scream, it would have brought me back to myself, and then—

“...Huh.”

My nose tickled—I could feel something soft and warm on it. I reflexively touched it with my hand, to discover my nose was bleeding.

Yikes! Way uncool! Why would that be the one part of the script that I managed to follow?! No! No, I’m sure my nose must’ve started bleeding when I fell. It definitely wasn’t from the shock and excitement of seeing Myusel and the others all but naked...

“U—Um, Shinichi-sama?”

Elvia popped out of the changing area, still happily in an advanced state of undress, to see how I was doing.

“What happened back there?”

“Nothing happened! I’m just fine, so get back in there and change!” I exclaimed, practically weeping.

And so, as you can see, the filming wasn’t without its little hiccups. But for the most part, things were going pretty well.

Obviously, we couldn’t just shut down the school while we were doing this, so in principle filming was limited to after school hours. But because of some top-notch scheduling by Minori-san (and Matoba-san, too), the work as such was clicking along. That’s a bureaucrat for you: managing time and people is their business, and they may not know much, but they sure know that.

And so...

“How’s it going, Shinichi-kun?”

I turned toward the voice, which belonged to Minori-san. She was coming my way.

I was only in charge of classes during the morning, so in the afternoon I joined forces with some students who had nothing else to do in order to put some props through their paces.

“I think it looks real good,” I said, pointing.

Minori-san glanced in the direction I indicated and promptly looked taken aback. “A dragon and... wyverns?”

“Well, the dragon is fake,” I said with a wry grin.

Standing out in the field behind the school was a gigantic dragon. It had horns, fangs, claws. Even wings. Everything was arranged for the most fearsome possible effect, designed to be terrifying to anyone who might face it down. Plus, the scales were red, like blood. If you ran into one by yourself in the woods somewhere, you would probably wet your pants. A true kaijuu (big ol’ monster: think Godzilla) if there ever was one.

The only catch was, it wasn’t real.

It was effectively a model, on a true-to-life scale.

Pulling our 1:1 dragon with a pair of ropes, however, were several visibly smaller dragons. They were a familiar sight around Eldant Castle, and if you looked up in the sky, you might occasionally see them patrolling the Empire’s territory. Wyverns.

When I found out that the parent of one of my pupils belonged to the Dragon Knights, and that they kept wyverns at home, I arranged to borrow a few of them.

As for the model dragon, I asked a dwarf parent to help make it with magic—an excellent project for someone skilled in construction and metalworking. So the dragon was actually built on a thin metal frame; it was hollow inside. It looked awfully heavy from here, but we could move it around with just two or three wyverns.

“Shinichi-sensei, it’s all set!” reported some students who were checking over the model.

“Great! Do just like we talked about, then!”

“Sure!” The students nodded.

Another group of kids, who had been standing by, mounted the wyverns, taking up their reins and whistling. The wyverns slowly stirred into motion, spreading their wings and then launching themselves into the sky.

And then...

“Action!”

On my cue, a student in charge of filming started up a tripod camera. It was pointed right at the dragon, which had begun to rise lazily into the air.

For reference, Minori-san was the director, but I was handling effects.

“.................Piano wire?” Minori-san whispered from beside me.

“Wire-based practical effects,” I said. “The heart and soul of any Japanese tokusatsu show!” I made a fist to underline my point.

The method was simple: attach piano wire to something, then lift it up so it appears to be flying. In the Japanese filmmaking industry, it practically constituted a traditional art of its own. These days, stuff like motion-control cameras saw such classical approaches on the decline, but they were still alive and well in the independent scene. Expert practitioners could make almost anything look like it was flying—not just airplanes and other mechanical objects, but even models of birds.

So the approach was conventional. It was just the wyverns that were maybe a little unusual.

“No good! No good! It’s off-balance!” I shouted from beside the camera. “It doesn’t look like it’s flying! Let’s go again!”

“Yessir!”

“This won’t work, the movement of the head is unnatural! It needs to be more like, graaah!, so you’re all waaah!”

“Graaah! so that we go waaah!, got it!”

“The right wing is drooping! What are you doing?!”

“Sorry about that!”

Minori-san silently watched me dispense instructions to the students for a while before she finally said, “You’re really into this, huh, Shinichi-kun?”

“Huh? Oh, I just... You know. Once I get started, I really enjoy it.” I scratched my cheek.

Any Japanese person would know the feeling. I was like a kid at a culture fest. Although to be fair, since I had stopped going to high school almost as soon as I started, I only knew middle-school culture fests personally.

“All right, cut! Bring the dragon back down here and let’s check it over!”

I glanced at the computer hooked up to the camera to see how the footage had come out.

Good, good. At a glance, the dragon really seemed to be flying. But when I enlarged it, while the image became a bit grainier, something that appeared to be piano wire cut straight through the middle of the frame. Excellent. It was exactly unnatural enough.

This was exactly what I wanted.

“Wow.” Minori-san was checking out the image from behind me.

“We even got the dragon’s footprints,” I said. “We had a foot made and used it to put prints on the ground.”

The whole hand-made thing, the analog feeling around here, was electric.

There was definitely a part of me that realized how ridiculous this all was: we were using actual wyverns to lift a fake dragon into the air. Bass-ackwards, I know. But I had given it a lot of thought, and this was the best way.

Actually, it turned out that faking evidence was a lot of fun. (Don’t listen to him, kids.)

“I get it. But hey, Shinichi-kun?”

“Yes?”

“I’m very sorry to say this when you’re working so hard, but...”

“Yes?”

“Couldn’t we just do it with CGI or something?”

I was silent.

Minori-san was silent.

Meanwhile, students were busily imprinting footprints, checking on the model, making sure it was airworthy. Somewhere a bird was singing, oblivious to all of this.

“......Don’t you think that in this digital age, when the computer is all-powerful, people will flock to something analog, that shows the warmth of real human creation?”

“......Maybe.”

I knew my logic was convoluted, but Minori-san was kind enough to let me have this one.

Before I knew it, the sun was setting on the far side of the horizon. Pink light spilled over the hills, covering us in a dull glow. It was a feeling I remembered well from childhood: like the world itself was telling you, It’s been a fun day, but it’s over now; time to go home. There was a sweet sadness to it.

“I guess we’ve just got another day or two left,” I said softly, reviewing in my head what we had filmed so far.

Of course, it was hardly a bad thing that everything had gone according to plan. If all continued to go smoothly, then we would wrap on filming tomorrow or the day after. It had been a frantic but oddly fulfilling time, and it was about to end. Of course, then there was the work of editing to do...

I fell quiet. At the moment, everyone was on break. The hilltop was pretty busy, with students chatting happily, munching on snacks to keep their tummies from rumbling, just in general having a good time. They weren’t even just hanging together by race. There were several groups that included both elves and dwarves. They didn’t look like they were quite used to it yet, but all the same, everyone was smiling.

The members of the JSDF had shown up to help today, too, and some of the groups included them as well, everyone laughing together.

Ahh. This is what promoting friendship and understanding is supposed to be. Phew!

It might seem funny given how long the school had been operating, but I felt like I was only just now realizing how important it was. I know some people think online education is plenty, but this sort of experience, with everyone accomplishing something together and having a grand old time, is something you can only get at a brick-and-mortar school.

Here, everyone was gaining shared experience in the pursuit of a particular goal. That made me really... happy, somehow.

At that moment, my eyes met those of Eduardo, who had written our script. We both smiled, but which of us was first? It was impossible to say.

Eduardo, and several other students with him, came up to me.

“Shinichi-sensei, I’m really enjoying this.”

“Watching anime is great and all, but... making something ourselves like this is real nice, too.”

“Why just do a part of a movie? Let’s do the whole thing!” someone else suggested. All the students had big, bright smiles.

Seeing how excited they all were, my heart ached to think we were doing all this just to throw people off about a leaked video clip.

Then Eduardo twisted the knife: “Actually, I’ve written the complete script!” He produced a stack of paper from the bag on his back. It did indeed appear to be the full version of the story we had come up with.

Hang on... “Actually, I’ve got it already!” What are you, kid, a cub manga artist?

“That’s cool,” I said with a weak smile, “but we just don’t have time...”

“Awww.” The students looked very pouty and unhappy. I tried to calm them down.

“Huh?” At that moment, though, I caught sight of Petralka at the edge of my vision. She was heading toward the lip of the hill, from where you could look down over the entire production site. I excused myself from the group of students and headed after the empress.

She was just looking around, but seemed to have something on her mind.

“Petralka?” I said, at which she turned around. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

“No,” she said with a shake of her head.

I came up and stood next to her. The sunset was especially beautiful from this spot. The clear blue of the cloudless sky mingled with the fiery colors of sunset to produce a startling palette in the heavens.

“We simply thought this was... quite lovely,” Petralka whispered, looking at the sunset. “Of late, we had been forgetting to see what was around us.”

Seeing her face in profile, I was lost for words. Here she was, essentially confessing to me just how much of a mental corner she’d been chased into by her life as empress.

“Shinichi.”

“Yes?”

“We have quite enjoyed ourselves.”

She turned to me, a gentle smile on her face. The kind of expression you only get when the emotion is completely spontaneous. Come to think of it... This might have been the first time I had ever seen her smile like that. There was always a certain tension in Petralka’s behavior. Even when she smiled, it was the empress smiling.

“We did not expect acting to be so much fun.” Her silver hair, fluttering gently in the wind, caught the evening light. “It is as you said—we feel we have taken on a different self.” Those emerald eyes narrowed happily.

There were no knights or serving girls around us, and we weren’t in the castle. Maybe that was why the Petralka in front of me at that moment seemed less like an empress than she did just a young girl. She looked... normal.

“We thank you, Shinichi.”

“Wow...”

I nodded. Dealing with the leak was great and all, but I had been hoping to help Petralka feel better on top of that. I didn’t know if we would pull off the cover-up, but at least I seemed to have achieved my second objective. And that made me happy, too.

Petralka and I stood together, not speaking, gazing at the sky. Almost before we knew it, the sun had sunk out of sight, and stars began to glitter above us in the night sky.