Study Buddies (OC Generification) (Patreon)

Between Magical Girl work, constant minionization, and Izanami taking over her body for weeks at a time, it's no wonder that Hikari's falling behind in her classes; when she comes across an advertisement for a high-quality cram-school meant to help people like her catch up in their grades, she decides to give it a try. Probably should read the fine print. 

Patron commission for Shadowplay. 

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“Why are you so worried about this? You don’t even go to school.” Izanami sighed loudly, or at least as loud as she could in someone else’s head.

“That’s kind of exactly the problem…” Hikari muttered.

“Why would you even need to attend? I’m a genius villainess, you could simply enlist my aid, for a price.”

“That would be cheating.” Hikari said flatly. “And then you’d go run off and I’d get expelled for leaving during the test or something.”

“I wouldn’t if it would mean you’d stop pacing like you were earlier. I’m going to get dizzy if you do that again.”

Hikari sighed. She’d decided to go for a walk to clear her head, but having a villainous hitchhiker did make that a touch difficult. She was normally a very optimistic and cheerful young magical girl - but this, this was a problem she couldn’t blast away in a burst of power. This threat was far greater than any one woman could deal with: grades.

Hikari Himura was not a dumb girl by any means. Even if… most people she knew would dispute that. She was, admittedly, very naive and too trusting for her own good. But she wasn’t book-dumb at least. She could take a test, recite facts, all that. She’d graduated high school with decent marks in spite of having become a Magical Girl at the tail end.

But as it turned out, college was another matter. She was spending more and more time doing her magical girl duties, and less time studying or in the classroom (not that she studied much anyway; she usually got by with what was in class). And that was to say nothing of how her attendance had crumbled when Izanami took control; the villainess had no interest in education whatsoever.

Between these two forces, Hikari rarely had a day where she could go to class. And now it was biting her, as on her last test she’d completely bombed; she didn’t know a word of what it was talking about, making do with educated guesses and luck. She’d missed so much class that it was an alien language.

She was an adult, and she had fairly stable employment as a Magical Girl, but that didn’t mean Hikari wanted to abandon her future studies; if her mother was anything to go by, she wouldn’t be a Magical Girl forever, and she was smart enough to want to have qualifications when she was done. And that meant working her way through college.

Izanami, for her part, rolled her eyes internally. Why bother with that kind of thing? Hikari was powerful enough that she wouldn’t need a job, magical girl or no. If she did want one, why not just use a touch of magic to get the employer on her side? She was clearly worrying over nothing, at least by the standards of a villainess like Izanami.

But still, this was getting irritating. She had no peace with Hikari’s mind in a flurry of worries and concerns like she presently was. Maybe there was something they could do to get her mind off it…

“What’s that?”

Hikari stopped. She’d ended up moving towards the college where she had her classes, and was passing one of the gates to the campus when she noticed something bolted to a board. Advertisements directed at students frequently appeared there, and this seemed no exception.

The poster was simple, and so was it’s concept - a highly rated study program for all levels of education, down from primary up to college. Something about getting yourself back on track. First week free. “Huh… that seems kinda boring, but…” Hikari muttered. She’d never been to any kind of cram school or what have you, usually being able to make do with her own studying - but the poster claimed fast results, and she was in fairly desperate straits as far as her academics went. So why not?

“You’re going to make me watch this?” Izanami said incredulously. “I’m bored enough with your daily life as is!”

“If you don’t want me to need so much studying, then feel free to attend classes when it’s your turn.” Hikari said, before taking a number.

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The cram-school seemed to be based in a fairly mundane school. It vaguely reminded Hikari of that one time she and the others had ended up in some dating sim scenario, but without the super saturated colors that made that seem so unreal. Instead, it was simple grey concrete and bricks that didn’t stand out much from the rest of the city.

Hefting her bag over her shoulder, she walked in, checking the note she’d written with where her classroom was supposed to be. Apparently that day would be relatively simple - it wouldn’t be a normal orientation or whatever, but it was meant to get prospective students acclimated.

Hikari found herself humming cheerfully to herself - it was like she was back in high school, as she walked down the hall towards the classroom for college students. She peeked into a few windows as she went, noticing assorted kids and teens - most of them not the super studious type one associates with persistent extracurricular study, but more delinquents and slackers desperately trying to get themselves through finals.

“Like you?” Izanami snarked.

“You know I’m just busy!” Hikari snapped back. “Better than anyone really!”

“Of course, of course~”

Izanami groaned internally. Schools like this reminded her more of prisons than anything. There might not be bars on the windows, but all the same it was a place where people were kept in many cases against their will for hours upon hours, day after day. Why would anyone voluntarily come to one?

Hikari found her room, and pushed open the door. She hurried to her seat and started to prepare herself, while she took a look around. This seemed to be the smallest class in the bunch; just herself, a young woman with bleached blonde hair and piercings who looked like she’d never left her punk phase, a nervous looking young man trying to steady himself, and another woman who was quite possibly the largest woman Hikari had ever seen.

The class hadn’t yet begun, so she decided it was time for some introductions (over Izanami’s groans). She was about to introduce herself to the young man, since he seemed in need of a friend, when the punk woman spoke up first. “How’d you get your hair like that?”

Hikari blinked. “Excuse me?” she said, not at first realizing what she meant.

“The white, duh.” The punk said. “There’s no marks of dye anywhere else, and it’s such a smooth color! I can’t do crap like that no matter how much I bleach and dye.”

“I, uh, no, it’s not dyed.” Hikari said. Well, that was awkward. She couldn’t really explain it without sounding like a nut. “Uh, magic accident?”

The punk frowned, but shrugged and went back to staring into space. Magic accidents weren’t unheard of in Matsushita, even with the Magical Girl Association clamping down on stuff and doing their best to reverse whatever happened. Sometimes something slipped through the cracks.

Hikari coughed a bit. “So, I’m Hikari… nice to meet you all? I think we’ll be working together from here on!”

“...Really. That’s your pitch?” Izanami sighed. “You’re too nice for your own good.”

“Akihito…” the young man said nervously. “I-I’m sorry, I’ve never failed like that before, I shouldn’t be here-” he was talking more to himself than to anyone else in the room, it seemed clear.

“He hitched way too much of his self worth to academic performance.” Izanami noted. “Reminds me of someone.”

“I’m not like that,” Hikari said under her breath. “Well, nice to meet you. Don’t worry, I’m in the same boat. I need to keep better track of my time…”

This time, the big woman decided to speak up. “Ha! Bookworms crashing and burning, are ya? Relaaaax, I’ve never studied a day in my life, and I still got into college! ...On a track scholarship but still.”

And that was why she was in cram school desperately trying to keep that, Izanami added in her thoughts.

The door opened again, and another adult entered the room - a prim and proper woman with her hair in a tight bun, and thin glasses. She held a thick textbook and a clipboard, and dropped the former on the table with a heavy thud. “Welcome to Matsushita Southwest High School. I’m your professor for today. There will be no pleasantries and no speaking; I am here to teach, and you are here to learn. Anything more is a waste of both my time and yours.”

Hikari winced. She’d had that kind of professor before, and it never made for a fun time. But given where she was, she supposed it only made sense that this was the type of teaching they’d have. The goal was maximum learning in minimum time.

They got down to business, studying away the time on a battery of subjects. It was a weekend, and they clearly planned to use as much of their time as they could. At the start of it, Hikari had a lot of trouble focusing. Even besides Izanami grumbling and yawning in her mind, she just had a hard time sitting still now that she was a Magical Girl; she’d much rather be out there helping people than memorizing dates and historical events.

Izanami shared the sentiment. At least that would be interesting to watch. Her eyes glazed over as fact after fact passed Hikari’s vision. At least they weren’t the only ones having trouble. The delinquent had been called up three times already, and the musclehead once.

“Miss Himura, up front.” The professor snapped. Hikari started out of her reverie - had she even been reading? She flushed and followed the professor’s directions. She stood and walked over.

“What do you need?” she asked.

“First, you will refer to me respectfully as Professor. Second, when I ask you to do something, you do not question why. You say ‘yes, professor’, and do it.” The Professor snapped.

“Sorry- I mean, yes, professor.” Hikari said. Maybe she wouldn’t stick around after all.

“Recite the passage we just went over, from memory.” The professor said.

Hikari blinked. They’d been reading something from a Japanese classic, and she got the gist of it, but she could hardly recall on command. She gave it a go all the same - she managed about two sentences before the professor interrupted her. “Mistake. Sit back down.”

Fuming, Hikari did as she was told. “Yes, Professor…” She muttered. That was irritating, and frankly, it made her mad. She wouldn’t be caught off guard like that again! She tried to focus on her reading, cutting out distraction, as the minutes and hours wore on.

She focused and focused, and the rest of the world started to fall away. There was only the studying she had to do! At least, she tried to focus in on that. Izanami was trying to talk to her and distract her. “Be quiet.” she said under her breath.

“I said, silence.” The Professor said sharply.

“Yes, Professor.” Hikari yelped, before getting back to her reading.

Izanami groaned. Hikari wasn’t noticing, was she? She was too occupied. In some ways, it seemed like she was just taking it more seriously. Not as much fidgeting, straightening her posture. That was normal, and even a bit laudable that she was focusing. What wasn’t so normal was that she was a bit shorter than she had been a minute ago.

Her hair was getting shorter, and so was her body. Izanami felt like the knowledge was piling up in Hikari’s head, leaving little room for herself. Something was going on, and Izanami was trying to break through to Hikari. “Hikari, listen to me for a second, you’re focusing too hard-” she tried. The other students were changing too, the punk’s hair shading darker, the athletic girl’s muscles not so bulging, and the young man not looking quite so masculine.

Hikari stood up when the professor called her again, feeling her gut twisting. They’d moved on to mathematics at some point, which was her worst subject. “Y-Yes, Professor?” she asked.

“Solve this problem.” The professor said, tapping on a blackboard.

Hikari took a deep breath and grabbed the chalk. For a few moments, she stared at the blackboard uncomprehendingly. Where did she even begin? Where would she go from there?

Then that voice in her head again. “Thirty two times the square root of-”

Izanami found herself speaking without meaning to. She was giving Hikari the solution to the math problem in front of her, but she wasn’t supposed to know that! Izanami frowned. Why did she know it? She hadn’t been paying any attention to the lesson… that was probably bad.

“Correct.” The Professor said. Hikari felt a sudden thrill shake through her body. It was the first time the Professor had been satisfied with any answer. “Good work. Back to your seat.”

“Yes, Professor.” Hikari said - even as excited as she felt, her tone contained none of it. She’d snapped at the punk for being snarky, and the young man for his nerves. She wanted a serious, neutral tone, and she tried not to let anything show.

As she sat back down, she didn’t notice that the white streak in her hair was darkening to black, even as her hair continued to shorten. She went back to studying.

Izanami kept trying to push Hikari out of it, but it was clear that Hikari was paying no mind to anything but her tasks anymore. She was acting every bit the dedicated student. At the start of the class, there had been quite a few issues with discipline; people talking, people not understanding the questions or back-talking the professor. That had changed; it was silent but for the movement of pens on paper.

The villainess kept trying, even as she felt the changes deepen - Hikari seemed younger now, as her hair now barely got past her shoulders, and the white streak was the better part of the way gone. Her casual hoodie and skirt had darkened from white and grey, to blue and black, and their shapes were shifting as Hikari worked. She was changing rapidly, most of the way gone. But Izanami could probably get through…

A paper landed on each of the desks. A test. “Complete this test before we leave for the day. You have an hour.”

“Yes, Professor,” came a chorus of replies.

It was a test combining all the things they’d gone over that day; math, history, Japanese literature, and a smattering of other topics. Hikari set about answering it. And Izanami’s attempts to break through to her were swallowed up as she found herself automatically giving Hikari the answers. She couldn’t think of anything but what Hikari needed to respond to a question. The knowledge shoved her mind out of place and filled it in with more facts and rules.

Hikari heard the voice still, giving her answers. But that was all it was - she studied, so she knew the answers. It made sense and wasn’t worth further consideration. The test flew by. She reached the last page.

“What does a good student act like?” the test asked.

“A good student is quiet, dutiful, and obedient.” The voice said.

“A good student is quiet, dutiful, and obedient,” Hikari echoed in her writing. Her hair was fully black now, styling itself in a simple bob-cut.

“Does a good student stand out? Yes or no.”

“No.” The voice said.

“No.” Hikari dutifully repeated. The others were the same. All had identical school uniforms, identical haircuts, identical faces and figures. They were good students and didn’t stand out.

“A good student helps other students. True or false.”

“True.”

“True.”

The repeats continued, the voices becoming one and the same. Hikari was a good student.

“Helping other students means making them into good students.”

There was no true or false here. It was a statement.

“Helping other students means making them into good students,” the assembled students agreed.

“You are a good student.”

“I am a good student.”

The bell rang, and as one the students stood. The Professor could no longer tell them apart; each was a cute, but average high school girl, and identical in most relevant ways. Telling them apart would be a moot point anyway; their minds were as identical as their bodies. The colorful classroom of before had been rendered monotone and uniform.

The Professor nodded with satisfaction. “For tonight, you will sleep in the dorms here.” she said. “For your next assignments, you will begin attending other high schools in Matsushita, and help to reform the students.” She handed out cards to each of them with a school’s name.

The students nodded. “Yes, Professor.” they said in unison, before marching out of the room. At the same time, more identical schoolgirls exited from each of the other classrooms. The one that had been Hikari was lost in the crowd as the procession marched up to their dorms for a recommended eight hours of sleep before going to their first classes and beginning their assignments.