Chapter 6 is here! I hope you enjoy! As always feel free to review :)

Chapter 6- Her Lesson

The location of the selection exam was at the outskirts of L-City. It was an area surrounded by greenery at the south and mountains at the north. Fav had advised Cranberry to hold the exam near an old road that led to the mountains. It had fallen to disuse years ago and was no longer passable by cars so there was no chance that humans would show up there; in other words it was the perfect stage for a death game.

The two elf Magical Girls had now arrived at the location and were on standby. Earlier, Cranberry had contacted one of her colleagues from the Land of Magic, asking for her aid. Melville wasn't sure what her mentor was up to and had refrained from asking questions as it wasn't her business. However there was certainly a good reason as to why Cranberry had done that and Melville was about to find out.

There was the sound of crunching noises against the gravel and then an unknown to Melville Magical Girl, appeared before them.

"Umm…" She was dressed in a maid's costume. Her braids had a beautiful dark ash blonde color and were tied with black bows; on her head she was wearing a frilly white bonnet with cat ears. She was holding a mop in her hands which was also decorated with a black bow. Her Magical Girl form looked very young like that of a small child. Maybe she was a small child as a human too.

Her red eyes had a timid, frightened look in them, as if she was about to cry at the slightest provocation. Melville had no doubt. That one was definitely a child.

Even so, how did that Magical Girl know that she and the musician were there? Was she a participant or maybe someone who had showed up uninvited? Melville was about to take a step forward, but then Cranberry spoke.

"We've been expecting you Nokko-chan. Thank you for coming here. Your magic will surely make this exam all the more interesting." The musician said addressing the maid Magical Girl.

Melville finally realized; that young girl was the reason why the two of them had been waiting on standby.

"I-I'll do my best…" the maid replied.

Cranberry then turned to her apprentice "Melville, I would like you to use your magic, the candidates will be arriving shortly and I'd rather if the two of you didn't get in any danger."

Melville nodded her head and immediately used her magic to make herself and Nokko-chan invisible. Not long afterwards, the candidates started to show themselves. When all of them had arrived, Nokko-chan used her magic 'to manipulate the emotions of others' in order to rile them up. The strongest girl among them proved to be easily ticked off as she went on a rampage killing three other girls in the process. Her magic was rather powerful because it allowed her to 'control the speed of others' which she used in order to slow down her opponent's movements, thus getting easy kills. No matter who she came up against, that girl would have the advantage in hand-to-hand combat.

Cranberry could feel the excitement running through her veins; her pulse racing at the sight of the strongest girl defeating the other candidates. She recalled her days at Mao's School when she used to compete against other Magical Girls in Battle Royales.

Ahh, the good old days…

In a flash, the musician joined the fight.

She crashed all other Magical Girls in her way, beating them mercilessly as she made her way towards her designated target, greeting her with a punch in the face. The girl who was already furious used her slowing magic on Cranberry and repaid her with a kick to the shin and a jab to the jaw, followed by a cross and finishing with another jab, all of which the musician was unable to block. Soon it became clear that Cranberry had the disadvantage. Her opponent would effortlessly evade all her blows and kicks while, on the other hand, Cranberry herself wasn't fast enough to block neither evade on time, resulting in her being hit multiple times.

Melville was watching closely. No matter how strong Cranberry was how could she counter an opponent much faster than her?

The musician was in a pretty bad shape; blood was streaming down her face, two or three of her ribs had been broken and judging by her movements it seemed as if her left arm had been incapacitated and yet…

...she was smiling.

Cranberry glanced briefly at the direction Melville was. Could it be that she wanted to show her something?

For some reason that Melville couldn't understand, Cranberry dropped on her knees. Her opponent went for a straight punch and Cranberry slowly lifted her right hand probably in a vain attempt to block it. Melville's heart skipped a beat as blood was splattered all over the place. The musician had been hit, but just then, Melville noticed that the other Magical Girl wasn't moving. As if time had stopped, she had remained frozen in place. The musician's smile grew wider revealing her teeth. Her opponent had been too confident in the superiority of her slowing magic, focusing on delivering the finishing blow that she had failed to notice that Cranberry's fingers were reaching for her chest.

The Magical Girl spat a mouthful of blood as her heart had been struck by Cranberry's sound magic. She stepped backwards, her body unable to support her weight any longer and like this she dropped cold on the ground.

Melville was amazed. She hadn't realized it at first, but Cranberry's every move had meaning. She had made herself seem vulnerable and waited for the right moment to strike.

Once they let their guard down is when you deal the fatal blow.

That was the lesson that Cranberry wanted to teach her apprentice. Melville knew that Cranberry could have avoided most of the damage if she had activated her magic earlier using an area-of-effect attack, but instead she had endured her opponent's brutality for the sake of teaching her apprentice a valuable lesson, a technique that Melville could adapt to her own fighting style. That was the kind of mentor Cranberry was; a truly admirable mentor.

The musician raised herself from the ground. Her lacey white choker, her bolero jacket and her dress, all had the same red color as her roses. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting air fill her lungs. The smell of blood was strong enough to make any living being sick but Cranberry neither noticed nor cared.

Fighting for your life in a game of survival and crashing your opponents with all your might—that was what Cranberry lived for. It was her whole life. She exhaled in satisfaction.

The elf looked towards her fallen opponent; her dead eyes staring blankly at her. She had fought valiantly but in the end she wasn't strong enough. The pleasure Cranberry had felt quickly turned into bitter disappointment. Once again she was the sole survivor, standing among the corpses of the dead participants all by herself.

Her chest felt heavy. She hated that feeling. She had spent majority of her life living like this—it was her choice to live her life this way, a choice she had made a long time ago when she was still a child and yet she would always feel unbearably lonely. She wasn't sure why.

Hmm? She cocked her eyebrow as soon as she heard something. It was what seemed to be the heartbeats of two magical girls. It wasn't the heartbeats of Nokko-chan or Melville since she could already hear those. The sound was faint as if it was coming from far away. Judging by the beating of their hearts they must have been running. Nokko-chan's magic only affected targets within a 20 meter radius, these two must have strayed too far from her range.

Cranberry chuckled softly. Think you can escape, huh? She thought and ran after them. Soon she disappeared behind the woods.

Melville undid her magic.

Nokko-chan exhaled in relief. Her magic relied on how she felt and it had been too hard for her to control her own emotions. Being near the musician made her feel extremely stressed. She had been assisting her for a long time, but Cranberry's brutality had always terrified her. Unlike her, Melville was perfectly calm and she was already checking the corpses to make sure that Cranberry had killed them; if someone was still breathing Melville would finish them off, there was no need for Cranberry to bother herself with them.

When she confirmed that all the participants had died she turned to the maid Magical Girl.

"Halp mi aut. Wi ahr throuing the bodiz off the clif."

"A-Alright."

The reason Fav had chosen the outskirts of L-City as the selection grounds wasn't only because it was an abandoned area, but also because it was close to the sea and would make it all the easier to get rid of the corpses. One by one, the two magical girls gathered the corpses at the edge of the cliff and pushed them off. All ended up at the bottom of the sea. As she watched the waves crash against the rocks, Melville wondered if Cranberry would be pleased for helping her out. Would she smile at her, would she pat her on the back?

Maybe. Hopefully…

"Melville…"

"Hmm?"

"Who is that person over there…?"

The elf followed Nokko-chan's finger to where she was pointing. Hanging upside down from a tree branch was an unknown Magical Girl; she was watching them through a pair of binoculars.

"Whoops! Looks like you spotted me, oh hehe…"

The girl had short blonde hair with red tips, decorated by a spiked leather bow. She wore a striped black and white tunic and blue thigh high socks with bone patterns on them. She was carrying a black cross-shaped guitar.

"My name's Tot Pop, nice to meet ya two!" The punk-rocker Magical Girl said in an upbeat tone.