Although Locke had assured her and the other girls that nothing inside the tunnels would hurt them, Adah still struggled to navigate hers with confidence. If she could walk normally, that would be easy, but the necessity of crawling caused her to hesitate with every move. Before planting her hand on the ground for her next step, she always gingerly felt around for any objects that may be waiting for her. Adah had already encountered a couple dozen different items this way. She couldn’t be sure how far into the pipe she’d progressed, but it couldn’t have been far, meaning today’s challenge was as full of decoys as last week’s had been.
Identifying the objects through touch alone proved more difficult than Adah had anticipated, too. Some items made themselves obvious after she fiddled with them a moment: a softcover book, a computer keyboard, either a basketball or soccer ball. Others she could discern by sniffing them, like the bar of soap she’d found. All of this work of identification took time, however, and often led to inconclusive results. A cylinder slightly wider than her palm that sounded of plastic when she tapped it against the wall? No clue.
The softer objects were even tougher to pinpoint, and Adah easily lost track of what parts she’d felt and which she hadn’t as she turned them over in her hands. Were those sweatpants or a sweatshirt? A scarf or a blanket? None of the above?
Of course, she couldn’t worry too much about identifying every item around her. The only logical way to start each round was by solving Locke’s riddle or, at the very least, making some guesses at its answer.
I’m cuter in person than how it otherwise seems. I don’t mind this tunnel because I’m used to being squeezed. Full of so much joy that I’m bursting at the seams.
Although she’d lost her flashlight to Ciel’s sabotage and was still fighting back her claustrophobic panic, Adah liked her odds in this challenge. She could make up for her disadvantages by solving Locke’s riddles quicker than anyone else. She’d had an affinity for these kinds of brain teasers as a kid and—compared to the likes of Felt and Pirouette—figured she could out-think her competition.
These rhyming “What am I?” riddles always hinged on a few specific words; the rest was nothing but fluff. In this case, “squeezed” and “bursting at the seams” stood out. Locke—or whoever had come up with the riddle—had built it around that wordplay between “seems” and “seams.” That had to be the best lead to follow. Something with seams had to have been stitched together, or perhaps glued or welded. Something welded together wouldn’t be getting squeezed very often, though, so it had to be stitching.
Adah had a couple of guesses in mind, but it was worth considering the nature of this challenge, as well.
Arthur had referred to the objects the girls were searching for as “gifts” from Locke. That was a peculiar word to use in this situation, so there was likely some meaning to it. Today’s episode had been leaning into the idea of romance between magical girls and boys, too, so perhaps these were meant to be gifts that a guy might give to a girl he was interested in.
Adah could push that logic a bit further, if she thought along the same lines she had during the last challenge. This was a television show at the end of the day, which meant every challenge had to follow two rules: be beatable by the competitors and be satisfying for the viewers. The production couldn’t allow this challenge to drag out for too long, otherwise they’d wind up with boring footage and no time to film the Penalty phase. Likewise, the solutions to the riddles had to entertain the audience in some way—either by being clever or cute.
Based on that, she could rule out objects like coins, grains of rice, and all other kinds of junk. They were small enough to slow down the production and boring enough to disappoint the viewers. She could also count out any tricks that depended on the color of the object or minor differences in texture, like between jeans and khaki pants. Just like with the books in the library, once you found the right gift, you’d be sure of it.
With that in mind, Adah became certain of her answer. The first gift had to be a stuffed animal of some kind—a teddy bear if Locke wanted to be cliché.
Maybe a pig if he wanted to be funny.
Now that she was willing to commit to her answer, all Adah had to do was search this pipe with one objective in mind. She only needed to touch the objects around her long enough to determine if they could possibly be a stuffed animal. Anything more than that would be wasting time.
Adah had the scoring system for this challenge in mind, as well. Even one first place finish would set you up well to dodge the penalty and give you a good shot at winning the challenge overall. She wanted to start this challenge off on the right foot, instead of scrambling to avoid last place like she had last week. She wanted to turn in this first gift before anyone else, and get to look up at Ciel as she realized her sabotage hadn’t slowed Adah down at all.
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If she could send a message like that, Heartbreak could find her footing among this cast. Clawing out a victory against all odds—that was a storyline Adah knew how to sell.
With her mind focused on finding a single object, Adah made her way through the rest of the pipe at a much more rapid pace. The anxieties that plagued her faded away, at least to a degree that they became vague discomforts that she felt in the background like a sore muscle. They no longer threatened to paralyze her. Reaching her hand into the darkness didn’t feel as scary when each new object she made contact with could be the soft fabric of the stuffed animal she was searching for.
And before too long, she did find the stuffed animal—or what felt very much like one. Soft, a little fuzzy, and squishy enough that it must have been filled with cotton. Now any remaining hesitancy left her, and she rushed back toward the pipe’s entrance. She only slowed down once she thought she was getting close to the antechamber, for the sake of not bumping her head against its door, but that was only a guess. She had no real way of knowing how far down the tunnel she’d found the stuffed animal.
The production crew must have been watching her via the cameras throughout the pipe, for immediately after her hand touched the antechamber door, its panel slid against her fingers as the door opened. She crawled through the entrance and waited for the second door to open so that she could exit the pipe and hopefully claim first place—and its ten points—for this first round.
When the next door opened, even the first rays of light that peeked through the crack of the sliding door panel were enough to blind Adah. She squeezed her eyes shut and held an arm up to shield herself as her pupils adjusted. Still, with no way of knowing whether anyone else was leaving their tunnel at the same time, she climbed through the antechamber door without looking. She wouldn’t forgive herself if she missed out on first place by taking her time this close to the end of the round. Once she could stand upright again, she held the stuffed animal—what she hoped was one, anyway—above her head to make sure that whoever was officiating this challenge could see it.
“Oh, looks like the Tiny Terror found the right gift as well,” Locke’s voice played through the room’s loudspeaker, though much quieter than before—presumably Arthur didn’t want the girls still searching to hear what was going on out here. “That puts Heartbreak in second place.”
Second? So someone had beaten her.
Adah opened her eyes partway, letting the world of light come into focus. After her vision cleared, it didn’t take long for her to find the girl who had come out ahead of her.
Ren stood just a few feet away, holding a brown teddy bear by its arm.
Adah looked up at the object above her own head to find the same teddy bear, except that she was clutching the animal by its neck. She brought the bear down in a haste and adjusted her grip. Ren gave her a small smile and a nod, both of which Adah returned.
The two of them claiming first and second was the best case scenario. Even if Adah couldn’t call Ren a true ally yet, she had faith neither of them would sabotage the other. From Ren’s perspective, this outcome must have felt even better. She had earned ten points this round, with Adah trailing at eight, and the next closest competitor only claiming six. Ren would enter the second round with nearly double the points of any of her enemies, and the greatest threat to her victory being Adah, who didn’t have a flashlight to assist her search.
Ren winning today’s challenge would be convenient, given she’d almost certainly sabotage Ciel next week, but for some reason the idea of that didn’t sit well with Adah.
If Ren won, that meant Adah wouldn’t.
She didn’t want a convenient outcome. She wasn’t satisfied with something convenient, just like she wasn’t satisfied with dodging the penalties.
She wanted to win! She wanted to look cool! She wanted everyone watching at home to be talking about her!
Adah had pushed all those feelings into a corner at the far recesses of her mind over the past few months. How could she let herself indulge in anything so vain while preaching about the real job of magical girls? Or while criticizing people like Thibault or Ciel? She had to bury those desires and stay focused on her mission.
But there was no way she could suppress those feelings forever.
They had been the heartbreak she’d named herself after. Her mascot had made little girls cry. All her effort on social media had amounted to tossing posts down an empty well. She had spent more time every day watching other people do what she wanted to do instead of trying to do it herself.
All of that was easy to forget now. She had accomplished more than she’d thought possible a year ago. She’d gotten to wear beautiful clothes sewn just for her; she’d sang alongside the girl she loved as a crowd roared their names; she’d made fans who said such ridiculous things in support of her that she laughed every time she searched her name. It was easy to feel complacent.
She’d done enough for herself, it was time to focus on more important things. That was the noble thing to do.
She could film that music video later. Put on another concert, hang out on that livestream, release some merch, take pointless photos of her and Rika looking cute—all of it could come later.
Now Adah couldn’t wait until later.
Maybe it was because she was surrounded by these magical girls who didn’t seem to worry about the humanoids at all, and were more than happy to enjoy this show to the fullest. Maybe it was the result of month after month of dragging herself from a training session to a Cruelty mission to a meeting with Elise with hardly a break between. Maybe—and most likely of all—it was the fact that the same ego that made her think the world should listen to her about the Cruelties also made her crave the world’s attention.
The reason didn’t matter because the end result was the same no matter how she thought about it.
This show was going to be a place where Adah could let loose.