幽往舞進 - winding my ghostly way forward
@undetaqted
幽往舞進
likely a twist on 勇往邁進
勇往邁進 = bravely moving forwards towards one's goal.
In this case, 幽 = ghost/supernatural and 舞 = dance so rather than bravely advancing greatly towards one's goal, it is more of a ghostly winding path that heads forward. The 舞 sounds the same as Mai's name.
en summarization/translation by taq
(all mistakes are my own)
Do Not Reproduce Anywhere.
—
The ancient capital is a blend of colors born from history, tradition, the ways of life of many people. It’s colors are deeper than those of Tokyo, old lands of scarred streets that have deep roots. There are words, relics, nature here too that run deep. The older the land, the more colors blend together to form it and the richer the image becomes.
But it is not all beautiful. Zenin Mai knows that.
With the beautiful comes the ugly and in the long expanse of history, the good and the bad are mixed together and dye the earth. Tradition and rigidity, family and feuds. Sorcerers and curses. To someone who can see through to the ugliness behind, these streets cannot be said to simply be beautiful.
Kyoto’s colors are born from tradition and they annoy Mai, which is why she has been displeased for the short time since they’ve all returned from Tokyo.
—
Mai, Miwa and Momo are in a crepe shop near the Hachijou exit of Kyoto station.
“What a mess of an event. I wonder if we could have stayed in Tokyo for longer,” says Mai.
“Can’t be helped, what with the Curse users and the Curses attacking and there being casualties,” Miwa says as she takes a photo of the heart-shaped latte art on her coffee.
She always takes photos but they have no idea where she uploads them.
“But that was too fast. I wanted to at least go shopping.”
“Yeah, I also wanted to see Marche...”
Compared to the Tokyo school where the students usually hang out by grade, the Kyoto girls hang out a lot. If it were a normal school, the separation of second and third years would be greater but since there are so few students at the Jujutsu schools and even fewer women, it matters less. That this is a more conservative environment than the Tokyo school has also compounded the situation.
“Where was this Marche?”
“Harajuku. On Takeshita street.”
“Momo, you like it right, Harajuku? I’m jealous that cute things suit you.”
“But I’m jealous of Mai-chan and Miwa-chan. I’m the senpai but you two fit the beautiful grown-up style more.”
“That’s a little much. There are fewer choices if you’re tall, you know.”
“Ah, I’ve heard that a lot. Then Miwa-chan’s the easiest to dress up nicely, I guess. You keep wearing suits but don’t feel uncomfortable in girly clothing—that’s a bit too much, don’t you think?”
“I can’t really draw a sword in a skirt so I can only try them on. And even if I have a lot of choices, Tokyo prices are a bit much for me...”
“Don’t say such things, Kasumi-chan.”
“There’s also cheap and nice things in Tokyo.”
Mai takes a sip of her coffee, swallows the bitterness slowly, then sighs.
“The exchange. I didn’t manage to leave an impact,” she mutters.
Miwa and Nishimiya exchange a surprised glance.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Mai-chan. There isn’t anyone here who had a good result.”
“You did better than me who was just sleeping. And I lost my sword.”
“That is true.”
Mai’s brows furrow.
“Maki’s results during the event notwithstanding, she managed to buy time against the special grade and contributed a weapon. There’s rumors that she’ll be up for promotion. I wonder if this news has already reached home.”
Miwa and Nishimiya exchange a troubled glance.
Mai laughs softly. “I wonder what they’ll say to me, who, unlike Maki, has a cursed technique but went up against her and lost.”
“...Mai-chan.”
The Zenin Clan is one of the Three big families that favors males, a harsh environment for female sorcerers. Having been around Mai for this long, the two of them know this well.
“Well, whatever. What’s done is done. Besides, Maki’s was also taken down and she’s a small fry anyway.”
“You’re such a liar! You totally lied about her grade!”
“Mai~san!”
“Oh hello.”
A girl approaches them, waving at Mai who has turned around. With slightly reddish hair and a beige blazer, she’s clearly a student who’s just gotten out of school with an ordinary air that’s different from the Jujutsu High students.
“Yuu, heading home from school?”
“Yup. No club activities today.”
“Ah. It’s fall, isn’t it. The sports clubs are done with their big events.”
Mai chats amicably with Yuu.
“Mai-chan’s friend?” Nishimiya says to Miwa.
“Ah, she’s—”
“Sorry for the late introduction. You’re Jujutsu High students, aren’t you?”
Yuu cuts in before Miwa can explain
“I’m the informer who’s based around the Higashiyama-ku area, Makimura Yuu.”
“Informer… So a ‘Window’?”
“Yes, that is what they call me.”
“I see. I’m Third year Nishimiya Momo. Nice to meet you. So you know Mai-chan and Kasumi-chan?”
“Yes. She knows me as Mai’s friend though.”
“Yes! Mai-san is my onee-sama.”
Momo spits out her drink.
“Mai-chan, what, you fix her crooked ties too or what?”
“What is that. I thought I said to stop with the ‘onee-sama’ but she won’t listen to me.”
“She can see curses but she can’t deal with them and was helped by Mai,” says Miwa. “And so she volunteered to help Jujutsu High.”
“Yes! Because Mai-san saved my life!”
“Oh, that’s pretty cool, Mai-chan.”
Mai frowns.
“It was just a Fly Head. Praising me for it feels a little like you’re making fun of me.”
“Even so, I was helped by Mai-san. So I became a Window because I wanted to help her. If there is anything I can help with, please let me know.”
“Then can you get some of the scones in the display case?”
“Understood!”
Yuu heads excitedly off to the cashier.
“Are you serious?” Nishimiya and Miwa exchange glances.
“Mai, it’s bad to make them run errands like this.”
“But she looks like she’s enjoying herself.”
“Mai-chan can be such a womanizer sometimes.”
“What do you mean by that?”
In the end Yuu returns excitedly also with churros that no one requested for.
—
“So you’re chasing this wandering curse.”
After getting Yuu up to speed on the exchange event, the conversation switches over to the latest Curse that is bothering Kyoto.
“Yes. Although the cases started from June, the locations and victims have been all over the place and it has been difficult to track them. It’s only lately that we’ve realized it is one Curse wandering over a large area.”
“Windows sure know a lot.”
“Heh. I heard this from Tanabe-san, the Auxiliary Manager. It seems like lately there have a number of victims in the area that I am in charge of.”
“Hm.”
Is this kid ok, to be saying something like this so lightly, Nishimiya wonders, a little worried. Besides talent with cursed energy, sorcerers also need a certain level of resilience to the extraordinary, to kill or be killed is what they encounter in their daily life. Even for those who aren’t fighting on the frontlines, anyone who deals with curses needs to have a certain sense of danger about them.
Even to someone who was scouted as a sorcerer like Miwa, Yuu’s speech sounds dangerous.
“Yuu. You said that there are victims appearing around you,” says Mai with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes.”
“If you see it, contact Jujutsu High right away.”
“Of course. I can’t fight them. I’ll contact you right away.”
“There’s no point in telling me,” says Mai. “Tell the teachers or the Auxiliary Managers.”
“But I want Mai-san to exorcise this curse. You can get promoted to a higher level by exorcising curses, right?”
“She looks up to you, Mai-chan.”
Nishimiya smiles, glad that someone else understands Mai’s position, the hard work she has put in, and wants to help her along the way.
Just as she’s about to dismiss Nishimiya’s gaze as annoying, Yuu checks her phone.
“Ah, sorry, I have to go.”
“Plans with friends?”
“No, work. The Curse we were just discussing was sighted near Fushimi Inari yesterday, and then before that near the Meijin highway in the evening… It seems to be most active at dusk. Next then there have been strange sightings at Tofukuji.”
“When you say strange sightings, don’t tell us that you’ve gone on your own?”
“It’s dangerous, if it’s traces you’re looking for, you should let the sorcerers do it.”
Even Miwa cuts in.
Yuu smiles. “I’ll just be confirming the leftovers. I’m well aware that Curses are dangerous.”
She turns to Mai.
“If I’m in trouble, please come and save me again, ok?”
She winks.
“For as much as the scones and churros are worth.”
“Got it!”
Yuu beams and leaves.
Like a duckling that’s attached to its mother, Mai thinks.
“You said you’d save her.”
“It’s just words.”
Mai looks outside the shop where Yuu is waving all the way until she can’t be seen anymore.
“But I’m surprised, Mai-chan, that you saved this kid before.”
Mai closes her eyes.
“I said, it was just a Fly Head.”
“If it’s just a Fly Head then you could have just left it. You didn’t have to help her.”
“Even if it’s mostly harmless, seeing something as ugly as that doesn’t make you feel good. But honestly, I do kind of regret helping her.”
Mai finishes her now cold coffee, frowning.
“It’s a mistake to think that you can put your trust in someone else.”
Nishimiya and Miwa exchange a glance at the way Mai’s gaze drifts off into the distance.
That contact would be lost with a Window near K Women’s University would be something they hear about one week later.
—
“It’s probably too late,” says Tanabe, the Auxiliary Manager. It’s not like they sent her out on a mission—in fact, it was rare that she chose to contact a student to ask about the case and he had shared all the information he could have with her.
It’s a Curse that wanders over a large area—if one were to make a lowball guess, it’d be a second grade curse. Many curses are attached to a single place and this one is different, able to wander a large space. However, it is likely to be limited in where it can travel.
This curse reacts strongly to the human gaze. There are many that do, but this one is special, that it appears to those who can see it and has chosen to attack them. More than anything, it chooses to attack those that can recognize it but lack the power to fight back.
In other words, Windows are the perfect bait.
That is what Makimura Yuu had her eyes on.
“I turned her down, of course. Besides, we were working hard to investigate this case without causing harm to any Windows.”
“A rescue mission? Can’t do that. We’re always short on first grade sorcerers. And this was a Window who knew how dangerous it was. It’s not that we’re cold but… Abandoning a child? If we adults were to do it, it would be one thing. But you students are children too. There’s no way we’d send students that are about the third grade to investigate a curse of unknown strength.”
Listening to what he says, it can’t help but be due to Yuu’s carelessness. To specifically come into contact with a second grade curse. To make the decision to investigate alone. No matter how one looks at it, it’s hard to empathize.
Miwa and Nishimiya exchange displeased, helpless gazes and then leave the room.
Mai is the last to leave.
—
Since she was born, Mai has been surrounded by terror. It’s unclear how many times she’s hated that she was born with the ability to see Curses. The blue skies are gorgeous, the colors of the streets are brilliant but it is not all beauty.
If she hadn’t been born into a family of sorcerers, hadn’t known that the world was cursed… Her eyes might have only seen beautiful things.
Mai is painfully aware of the fear of seeing Curses.
There is no reason to not be afraid.
There is no reason to face them calmly.
Save me, alright? The voice echoes in her ears.
“So stupid...”
It was a casually made promise. There is no reason why she should keep it.
As Tanabe said, Yuu’s the one who went in looking for trouble. They’re not close enough that Mai’d carelessly rush in to help. Not to mention the enemy is a second grade. Mai is a third grade. It’s not something she could do.
“There’s no way I could do that...”
It’s late at night and she is alone in her room.
Even though there is nothing she hears, she covers her ears and closes her eyes.
She should leave her behind. That’s the right thing to do. No one would blame her. But it doesn’t feel good and she searches for whatever it is that is making her chest ache.
—Liar
Subconsciously, a familiar voice rings in her head and a face swims to mind.
Maki.
Even if she swipes at the air, the image doesn’t disappear. Maki’s gaze is fixed on her.
“What do you wanna say? Are you an idiot?”
A groan bubbles up like it’s squeezed out of her. And finally she realizes. If she looks carefully, it’s not Maki’s face.
It’s her, as a child.
“—Liar.”
Now she hears it clearly, recognizes the muttering to be her own.
The memory swims around in her head and a multitude of scenes flash pass. Maki who held her hand. Maki who promised to never let go. Maki who grew up all on her own and left her behind.
Mai, who called her a liar.
Her, who is always the one who is about to cry.
“...I”
She takes a deep breath, pulls the words out from within her and out through her lips.
“I’m different from her.”
She slots her gun in her holster and puts on her coat.
It’s not clear even to her what she’s going to do. Probably something stupid that nothing good will come out of. But even so that her body moves is because she cannot stand it.
She believed her, believed that lightly made promise. And it is the image of that foolish young girl that Mai cannot stand.
That is why she’s going.
There’s no point in believing, promises are made to be broken, and to be the one to show that—It’s just that she doesn’t like it.
She twists the doorknob.
In the darkness of the corridor, there are two shadows.
“Kasumi. Momo. ...Why”
“Because we thought you’d probably go,” Nishimiya says, her broom thudding to the ground.
“But to think you’d try to go alone, what kind of friends are we?” Miwa’s hand is on the hilt of her blade.
“...all weirdos,” Mai replies, dumbfounded.
Three sets of footsteps sound quietly down the hall. Nishimiya and Miwa following like there’s nothing out of the ordinary.
Without turning behind, Mai says, “We won’t be getting points or getting paid for this.”
“I just like hanging out with Mai-chan and Kasumi-chan.”
“It is a concern that we’re not getting paid, but let’s at least not leave with any damages.”
Goodness.
What faces them is a danger greater than simply broken bones. No one will praise them and, more likely than not, they will only get into trouble.
Even then, that their feet move onwards…
“Hey, Mai-chan. You’re that worried about the kid?”
“No way. What a stupid chid.”
“Then why’d you decide to go save her?”
“I—”
It’s a difficult question and she doesn’t have a logical answer. But that line floats to mind and falls from her lips and after she says it, a tinge of regret remains.
“I don’t want to hate myself. That’s all.”
The lip she bites down on hurts in the chill of the night.
—
There is a large cemetery that unfolds just south of K Women’s University. It seemed likely that the curse would be there and sure enough, traces can be found. Going further south, crossing the street and passing a temple, they walk down a street with rotting wooden panels. A barren empty ground and moss covered stone storehouses. A dark park and a stretch of forest. It is a forbidding path, one where a Curse would feel most at home, Mai thinks.
The traces get denser and finally they come to a large building.
“...This is a school, isn’t it?” says Miwa.
“Former, I guess. Looks abandoned,” Nishimiya says.
Curses easily find homes in large buildings. Schools are one such place. There probably isn’t as good a spot as this, an abandoned school at the end of an old, old road.
The footprints lead on into the school grounds.
Shining a light on the ground, where the footprints disappear is where there are fresh blood stains.
“What should we do, Mai-chan? I think it’s dangerous to go right in.”
“You two wait here until I call you.”
“Are you thinking of going in alone?”
“You heard, didn’t you? It’s a cunning Curse. It’s looking only for people who can see it but don’t have the power to fight it. It’ll run away the moment it sees the two of you.”
“But if that’s the case, Mai, you too—”
Before Miwa can finish her sentence, Mai speeds up, making some space between herself and the two of them. She turns around and there’s a slight, self-deprecating smile on her face.
“I’m the one who becomes the weakest.”
It clicks for the two of them.
Construction. A cursed technique that allows one to create something out of nothing. Just looking at the outcome, you’d think it’s an unfair technique but it consumes a great amount of cursed energy and leaves a heavy burden on the body.
A bullet a day is Mai’s limit.
With third grade sorcerer Mai’s cursed energy, if she were to use her technique before hand…
“That’s dangerous, Mai-chan.”
“I came here knowing that. It’s fine. I’ll message you over LINE once I have a grasp of the layout of the school, then all you’ll need to do is answer my call.”
Mai steps into the dark entrance to the school grounds.
“Don’t forget to pay me back for the help during the exchange event.”
Wrapped in a black coat, her back disappears into the darkness.
—
Curses are frightening. They hurt and kill. They’re the perfect foes of humans, drawing their energy from them. This is something that is obvious but that sorcerers sometimes forget. Perhaps it is because they have the ability to combat these Curses. Perhaps it’s because they do it so much that it slips their minds and they grow numb.
Whatever it is, they should understand, but they don’t.
As a sorcerer, and even one who is very aware that she is not strong, Mai is no stranger to this.
But now it is clear.
The strategy was to consume her cursed energy before the battle, to be bait. After using her technique, she lacks the cursed energy to even put up a struggle against a second grade curse. She is exhausted, her pulse fluttering, blood dripping from her nose, hurting all over.
Even exorcising a Fly Head would be hard now.
In this state, she stands on the third floor of the school grounds at the end of a corridor.
Looking at the Curse, she remembers.
She remembers fear.
“Found you~”
Burnt skin, six thin long, jointed arms. A bloated face like a volleyball, four thin eyes that widen and look, all of a sudden, in her direction.
Lipless, it laughs with teeth gnashing. It’s not an expression that a human could produce but somehow it feels like a condensation of the darkness of mankind.
Shriveled long hair gives it the look of a young girl. It’s not human, but it looks like one and that makes her skin crawl.
Just looking at it, she understands that it is a different existence.
This is a curse.
This is what devours the world, mankind’s natural enemy.
—No.
No, no. It’s scary. Scary. She’s so sick of trying hard, facing pain and scary things. Being a sorcerer really is just shit. From deep within her, this flows out.
The fear that freezes her blood rings in her head.
Her throat is dry, trembling. “...ah….”
Even so she swallows, clenches her teeth.
Yuu is there right next to the curse.
She seems to be breathing but cannot be said to be unharmed. Her face is bruised and swollen, burnt like she’s been feasted on by the curse. Her right leg is bent and doesn’t appear usable. Her left arm is missing from the elbow down. Dying from blood loss is likely around the corner even if there isn’t a lot of blood visible.
More than trying to hurt her, it seems like Yuu’s simply been violently toyed with. It’s clear how the Curse captures humans.
To it, Yuu is likely just another toy.
And now, a new one has appeared. Mai has drawn its attention.
“...Mai...san…?”
Yuu’s eyes meet hers. It’s unclear what the tears mean, if they are of fear or reassurance. But Mai knows she has to face her and be strong.
“Close your eyes. If you can’t see it, it’s like it’s not there.”
She’s made a stupid choice.
She’s come to a place she cannot escape from.
And so there’s no room for hesitation. All she can do is move forward.
She grips her revolver, pulls the trigger.
“Come, you ugly thing.”
The muzzle flash lights up the school grounds.
The bullet seems almost to be sucked into the curse’s forehead.
It is stupider than it looks, she thinks with a laugh, but it’s useless. More than anything, to this curse, you could say there was no reason to dodge.
Because there was no cursed energy in the bullet.
“You’re looking? Can you see me? You can see me. You’re looking at me? At me?”
It slowly walks towards her at the speed of a snail, those thin arms waving.
Slowly, slowly, ever so slightly getting faster, a grin as it approaches Mai.
Checking that the curse is leaving Yuu behind, Mai keeps her eyes on the curse as she backs away, revolver pointed at it.
Just meeting its eyes has her sweating from the pressure. Her trembling finger squeezes the trigger. One more shot. The attack does nothing, but perhaps the gunpowder might shave away at its confidence.
The shot pings against the wall and finally the curse dashes at her.
Mai sprints down the corridor. She can’t just lose it, checks for its position as she leads the curse away with herself as bait.
Down the corridor with its old tiled floor, pushing against the rotting wallpaper, she dashes down the dusty stairs several at a time.
She turns and the curse is using all six of its arms, dashing like a spider.
“Seems like they stretch a distance.”
Not just as a mode of transportation, the arms seem to have a reach that bely the distance between them. She can’t get caught, she can’t get too far away and Mai bets her life in this game of ‘catch me if you can’.
“You’re looking at me?”
Mai grunts as one of the arms that has suddenly stretched out grabs hold of her coat hem.
Goosebumps raise on her skin and her thought process fizzles. Biting down on her lip, she forces the trembling down and tears the edge of the coat of with a shot and runs.
The extreme fear, nervousness and the accumulated stress whip her on. Her lungs hurt like they’re being squeezed. Her legs feel heavy as if weighted down. Her body screams at her to stop moving.
But she cannot stop here.
She cannot let Yuu die. She cannot die either.
She’s not going to be a mistaken sacrifice.
It’s not just that she cares about herself, not just that she wants to save Yuu. If she doesn’t live, if she doesn’t save, then her words will be a lie.
And just for that reason, Mai runs.
“You’re looking? Looking? You’re looking? Look?”
“You’re so annoying!”
Forcing her feet past their limits, Mai gains a few meters.
But that is the end of the second floor corridor. A pure white wall halts her in her tracks and Mai slams ino it.
“!!”
“Found you~”
She turns and the curse is right there, all six arms spreading out.
There isn’t a way for her to escape. She has three shots left. Not even the reload from her technique. If she were to force cursed energy into a shot, she wouldn’t even be able to walk. And even if she did that, she knows she wouldn’t be able to fatally wound this curse.
Against a second grade, she couldn’t hope to run or fight alone.
Trapped.
Positionally, practically, all signs point to despair.
“Found you. Found you. Found you~”
The curse grins at her.
A smile comes about because a predator is showing its teeth to prey. Now Mai understands this fully.
To the curse, Mai’s already captured. There’s no need to hurry. In fact, as if enjoying the chase and the fear, it slowly moves towards her. The aura from the curse feels like it burns as it approaches. This curse probably isn’t going to kill her right away. That Yuu who was captured is still alive tells that tale.
Toyed with, twisted, broken, and then destroyed.
Yuu’s pained visage swims in her mind. That is her future.
Alone, there is nothing she can do to change that.
Yes, that’s if she’s alone.
“You’ve made a mistake, second grade. Licking your lips before your prey. As expected, you’re not very good.”
“Hahh?”
It’s eyes narrow.
Mai steps back, pressing her back against the white wall, a hand in her pocket.
“You relied too much on your eyes.”
She presses call.
“—Momo!”
Mai ducks and in an instant, a portion of the white wall is torn away and a strong gust blows through the window that appeared.
“Ohhhhh???”
What was torn away was the fake wall that Mai made with her technique. Mai whose limit is a bullet a day cannot hope to make a structurally sound wall. But in the darkness of the corridor, she can hide a single window. Nishimiya was waiting not for the curse, but for Mai’s signal to blow the window open with a gust.
There’s no place to hide from the wind in the narrow corridor and the curse is blown away in one go. It’s arms reach out and dig into the wall to hold itself there. In the sheltered dead angle below the window, Mai raises her gun.
Putting the very last dregs of her cursed energy into the bullet, she pulls the trigger.
Her body reacts violently, pain splitting her head open, blood dripping from her eyes but she keeps them open. A second shot, and a third.
These make its arms flinch but aren’t killing blows and the curse is blown to the end of the corridor.
It’s not enough. With just the wind and the bullets, they can’t hold it back. Mai as she is right now doesn’t have the strength to land that final blow.
But that’s fine.
Because she never thought that she would win on her own.
All this time, she’s been waiting down this corridor.
“You can take it from here can’t you, Kasumi?”
“New Shadow Style. Simple Domain”
A circle of radius 2.21 meters appears around Miwa Kasumi, a full auto interception of blows in this zone. Nishimiya’s wind. Mai’s bullet. A corridor with no escape and a curse whose stance is broken.
Constructing layers on layers.
If these conditions are met, it cannot run away.
And now it is met with the New Shadow Style’s fastest move - Battou.
“Ahhh!! Look! I found you! Found you! Fou—”
Silver flashes, splitting the darkness and the misshapen figure falls in two.
—
The next day, Makimura Yuu is to be sent to the Tokyo school for Ieiri-sensei to treat her as the Kyoto equivalent is too busy. The person who wasn’t meant to be rescued, left for dead. Besides, as an outsider, there is no reason to heal her. More than that, it was brought about by her own foolishness. She isn’t a sorcerer and there would be no loss to losing her. In fact, coming so far as to treat her is a gift, one could say.
Yuu waits in the Kyoto school’s medical bay to be moved.
It is a clear fall sky outside, the clouds moving slowly at great height.
Yuu opens the window for some fresh air.
A gentle breeze dances by and a witch descends on a broom.
“Hello. I see you can walk now.”
Yuu squeezes her arm stump. “They stopped the bleeding and removed the pain with a technique.”
“We picked up your hand so we should be able to attach it back. There’s a doctor who can use reverse cursed techniques so you’ll be fine. That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Sorry for causing you trouble.”
“Well, it was trouble.”
Even if she says that, her tone isn’t one of blame.
“Mai-chan said this. She’s done with you and doesn’t want to work with you anymore. She doesn’t want to see you so next time please go die somewhere she doesn’t know about.”
“...she’s a kind person isn’t she, Mai-san?”
“You got that from what she said?”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
That she would think this way can only mean that she admires Mai. And so Nishimiya cannot bring herself to be cold to Yuu. Even if she is a useless ally, she’s an ally nonetheless.
“Live well. If not, there won’t be any meaning behind us exorcising that curse.”
“...yes.”
“Don’t cry, don’t cry. If your eyes swell anymore, your cute face will be ruined.”
Nishimiya hands her a lace trimmed handkerchief and floats up into the sky.
Her broom draws a large arc on the fall wind.
Birds fly by in the air in the pattern of a tightened tie. I wonder what that is, Nishimiya looks up and thinks.
Nishimiya comes down near the entrance to the school.
“Taxi~”
“800 yen starting fee.”
“Isn’t that expensive?”
Mai gets on the back of her broom.
The small broom struggles a little with the weight of two but it should be able to make it back to the dorm just fine and it rises into the air.
This is a better place to chat than in the corridor.
“Momo, your hair is kind of in the way.”
“I did it like this because I like it. Don’t use them like handlebars like you did the last time.”
“Yes, yes. Where’s Kasumi?”
“Giving excuses to Tanabe-san. They like her, the auxiliary managers.”
“I see. We’ll have to corroborate with her later then.”
As they rise in height, she can see further and Mai’s gaze falls further still.
“Was it fine to not see her?”
“Yes.”
“Ok.”
Nishimiya doesn’t ask any further and Mai doesn’t say any more.
She followed her word and saved a single person. No one is going to praise her, it isn’t going to help her appraisal as a sorcerer. She decided it on her own and exorcised a curse she wasn’t asked to. The Zenin clan may be more annoyed. Things may get worse.
Even so, she couldn’t overlook how she wanted to do it.
It’s hard to breathe as it always is. She’s sick of it as she always has been. But her heart of hearts is just that little bit lighter.
By changing her perspective, the scenery seems brighter.
“You can see pretty far from here, Momo.”
“Told you.”
“If I work harder and go higher, I wonder if there’s more that I’ll be able to see.”
--
Translator Notes: I didn't translate the entire story word for word since I'd intended this to be more of a summary. As such, there were parts I skipped over where it was mostly description that I thought wasn't totally key to the story and there are some parts that are condensed in meaning. That said, I did my very best to adhere to the spirit of the text and, where possible, I didn't change the words that the characters said.
It's perhaps hard to see from just the English, but a lot of Mai's lines are direct references to the conversations she's had with Maki and in those cases especially, I tried my best to use the phrasing from the anime.
Note: I will remove this once the official English version is published, for obvious reasons
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