Poke Her With a Stick

Natsumi, Catherine, and Fuijiwara-dono approached the prone body with caution after the long game of tug-of-war. The two magical girls stood over the body of the ghoul girl examining her for any sign of movement.

“Um, is she…” Catherine began but interrupted herself unsure how to phrase it. “I mean, she probably already dead…” Her tone implied an air of excusing their own culpability in formenting this ghoul’s currently lifeless and splayed out form on the ground. “Undead?” Catherine clarified.

She shifted her gaze behind Natsumi towards the street. Cars were passing by but even as the sky lightened nobody turned in their direction. She turned back towards the ghoul on the ground and sighed.

What now?

The figure laying in front of the Gate of Daitokuin remained still. The shards of reality that had been shattered away were crystalized around her. From the street, that young woman, Natsumi judged, might appear to be a twenty-something who had gone on a rager through Roppongi and found her final resting place on the steps of a mausoleum blacked out.

To her left, Catherine grew concerned leaning towards the ghoul on the ground trying to assess the situation. She vascilated between a nervous glance towards the street and the undead corpse in front of them. She turned her eyes to Natsumi at last. Fuijiwara-dono turned his eyes up towards her too.

Natsumi pursed and twisted her lips to one side as she thought.

She could zap her now, but that didn’t feel right to shoot first and never ask questions.

With the end of the Heartwing Staff, Natsumi reached out and poked the back of the ghoul’s head a few times.

“Natsumi,” Catherine said with an annoyed tone that implied they weren’t ten-year old children.

“What?” Natsumi retorted in a low voice. As a ten year old, she learned first-hand that poking someone with a stick was a proven way to test their wakefulness after all.

The body remained still.

Well, she was undead after all, and maybe falling flat on her face removed the “un” part of that.