Story: RCM Magical Christmas Cake Yumiko

The manga industry is a cut-throat place to work. Like most industries in Japan, it's a high stress environment from top to bottom. Where young idealists are chewed up, the marrow extracted from their bones, and the mangled remains of their spirits spat out.

"The market research doesn't lie! The readers want more trains!" an attractive woman in office attire said, slamming down her report onto the desk in front of her. "I don't care that the setting is two hundred years before the steam revolution, we gotta give them what they want!"

“But ‘Watch Out Miko-chan’ is a fantasy romcom?!”

“And it’s the on the bottom third of the manga according to our surveys,” The woman said, slapping down a pile of postcards sent by readers ranking the comics in the magazines. "Make with the choo-choo, or make with the wrapping up the plot."

The editor opened his mouth to argue, but already knew there was no point. When she brought out the reader surveys there was no arguing. There was either find a way to adapt to the trends, or start drafting up a new series concept because your mangaka would be making one soon.

"I'll push the idea onto the mangaka," the editor said, in much the same tone that Sisyphus must use when he starts to push the boulder back up that bloody hill. "I'm not sure how they'll fit trains into a fantasy world without any sort of modern technology but okay."

"That's why the mangaka gets paid," the woman said. "They're the creative minds."

“Yeah, yeah... I'm just the editor, and you're the bean counter."

Damn right! The woman, Yumiko, relaxed in her chair and smoothed down her office dress. "Honestly I don't get why they complain," she groused under her breath. "Ungrateful... Don't they realise, you can't live as a starving artist in the modern era, you have to work to make money." Sitting down in her office chair, she adjusted her long and curly dark red hair. Which kind of poofed out around her. Yes, the 80s were long dead but she liked long hair and her hair would only ever flare out in curls when long.

It didn't help that she had a face that would've been perfectly suitable for an 80s shoujo series. Tiny mouth, bigger than average eyes that almost seemed to shine even when she was angry. And of course, she had a perfectly respectable figure. Very curvacious, almost a perfect hourglass figure, and you could only tell her actual age range when she frowned. That sort of look to her. It was a shame that she wound up frowning so much these days.

“They wouldn’t even be able to make comics if people didn’t spend money to read them… They shouldn't complain about me doing my job when it lets them do theirs!”

Not that she's <i>bitter</i> or anything, heaven forbid. Well, nothing else for it. She put her papers away, then got out of her seat and strolled out of her office, onto the main floor. Here she could get her assistant to properly file it.

There she was greeted with cake. A big pink cake. With her assistant and various other people under her eating it. For some ungodly reason. There were also some bottles. Hopefully not booze.

"What's going on out here?" Yumiko asked. "Why is there cake?"

Her assistant looked up at her with bright, young, shining eyes. "Don't you remember boss? It's my last day!"

A dark crack appeared in Yumiko’s heart, and she remembered. Her assistant had a boyfriend. Then she suddenly had a fiance. And soon she would have a husband.

"Oh, how nice," Yumiko said. "How thoroughly pleasant. A 22 year old girl like you is getting married."

Twitch twitch.

"I mean, look at me! Thirty years old, and still. Not. Married. It must be <i>nice</i> to have a husband. It must be nice to have someone to share your life with. It must be. So. Super. Nice."

“But Boss, I thought you wanted to have a career?” One of her male assistants said. Blithely. Who she knew had a wife and kids himself. But that wasn’t a problem for him was it!?

Before she tore a strip out of him, a hand fell on her shoulder. It was Hiroshi Fudesaki, the Head Editor. Yumiko's cheeks grew flush, and he easily led her aside as the rest of the staff began to celebrate her assistant deciding she'd rather be a happy housewife than work for a living.

Ah! What could he want to discuss with her at a time like this? She stared at his clean shaven face, those glasses that made him seem so distinguished and approachable. That light brown hair cut just long enough to give him a stylish look, that shirt with every button done up except the top one. Despite the mostly professional dress code he never wore a tie, which let that unbuttoned top show just a hint of his lean chest. Oh, the hours she'd dreamed of wkaing up with her cheek on that chest...

"Hey now, I know how it is," Hiroshi said. Of course he did, Hiroshi was so thoughtful. And handsome. And considerate. "Tell you what, my daughter has me hawking tickets for her stage play. How about you try out a change in scenery?"

Oh, phooie, he was trying to cheer her up.

"I didn't know you had a daughter," Yumiko said. "Who is her mother?"

"Yeah, well, I don't want to talk about that, come to her stage play."

Yumiko sighed, he was always like that. She'd been crushing on him like a high schooler for a while now. But, alas, the good ones were always taken. And he had been taken as it were for years, if he had a daughter. She was so jealous of his wife, whoever she was.

She couldn't take this atmosphere, so she stepped out the back door for a little privacy. Ugh, it was so frustrating! She was hot! She was pretty! She was <i>fucking nice</i>!

"Um, excuse me!" a youthful, enthusiastic, full of life and hope and may I repeat youthful voice piped up out of nowhere. "Here please read this!"

There was a girl in a sailor fuku holding a stapled-together stack of pages. With blond hair tied into a pony-tail, and a pair of round glasses covering up a large part of her face. Ah, how interesting, according to the data she'd been reading this morning this girl had the ideal features for the "ideal secret identity for a magical girl."

"Hello! My name is Akari Urabe!" the girl bowed, while also thrusting the papers into Yumiko's hands. "Please read my ideas!!"

"... how old are you?" Yumiko asked, a suspicion crawling into her brain. Also age was on her mind right now <i>for some reason</i>

"I'll be eighteen next month!"

"Ehhh, well, come back next month then," Yumiko shrugged, passing back the transcript.

“But I need to seize the chance to live my dream now!” Akari put the transcript back into Yumiko's hands. "At least read it!"

Guh! This wasn't even fair! It wasn't her job to approve new series, and this girl was too young to have a contract with them - even if it was for a month, she couldn't legally hire her even if she had the authority within the company to do so!

But when she makes a face like that...

"F-Fine, I'll read it tonight," Yumiko said. Oh darn it! Curse her weakness for cute things! Alright, whatever, she'd read it and it would be trash. Someone that young submitting their first work always submitted trash.

<hr>

"Holy shit this ish smashing!"

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the sound of a drunken Christmas Cake reading a damned good transcript from an amateur.

"Oh man, if I could draw and write half as good as this I'd be a mangaka instead of counting beans and being hated by everyone!" Yumiko bawled, then downed another bottle without coming up for air until the last drags came out. “But nooo I have to be the frigid bitch who they all hate because somebody has to reign in these crazy artists before they get the bright idea to devote ten entire chapters to the female lead getting dressed with each page focusing on a single body part!” That was a slight exaggeration of something that she had to team up with two different editors to shut down once.

But the thing was, this story? It was kind of pissing her off. Oh, it was great. Fantastic. Amazing writing, she kept on turning the page in anticipation of what would happen next and would have absolutely bought this if it was out on sale. The trouble was the content of the story.

"Ohhh, sure! Yet another magical girl with a fated true love!" Yumiko mocked, even as she pined for the two to actually goddamned hook up.

Everybody knows that nobody wanted this sort of cute happy stuff anymore. Ever since Nodoka Harmonia came out and changed the scene everybody knew if you were doing magical girls it had to be <b>subversive</b>. Dark. With at least one character dying before the third chapter. As much as Yumiko personally liked this, no way would she approve something like this to appear in a magazine. It’d be canceled within a month.

"Blegh... That's just like my own life," Yumiko grumbled. "I'm ten years out of date at this point. Even though I'm really pretty, even though I go on a lot of blind dates that people set up for me, I've never had a second date with anyone."

“Didn’t you say you had a blind date tonight?” The bartender said, polishing a glass while she listened to one her regulars gripe, again.

“Sometimes I don’t even get a first!”

"Have you considered that it might be down to your quite intense personality?" the bartender tentatively suggested. "You have many great features, but a bad first impression..."

"Who has an intense personality?!" Yumiko said.

"Yes, yes, you're quite right. Oh dear look at the time, that certain takeout place will hit its peak orders time in the next ten minutes, and then you'd have to wait a whole hour and a half to ensure you get your food in a timely manner."

What is it about bartenders that give them the ability to know exactly what buttons to press to get their way with patrons? Is there a training course? Is it instinct? Whatever the case might be, Yumiko couldn't hang around. Her stomach was already growling at the prospect of not having its noodle and chicken fix within the next hour, especially if it meant not having that sweet, sour sauce touching her tongue! She dashed from the bar with surprising dexterity and speed for someone who was so thoroughly tanked, and then made a beeline for her favourite takeout place. Nothing could stop her. Nothing could impede her -

"Hssss!"

"Snaaaaaake!" Yumiko childishly cooed, immediately changing course to skip into the dark alley the hissing had come from. "Yay, snakes are cute!" She had always loved animals like snakes, frogs, spiders, etc. She found them cute even as other kids her age ran screaming from them.

But, upon entering the alley she found something quite unexpected. Namely, a pair of big heaving breasts that made her feel a spike of jealousy, up until she noticed they were attached to a body that had a snake's tail and also eight spider legs, because evolution had apparently decided to be cruel and redundant.

"Oh," the monster from her very worst nightmares said, leaning to peer at Yumiko right in the eye. "And here was me thinking I'd have to get creative to lure in my next prey."

“Did somebody try and slip something in my drink?” She said. “Because you look like some kind of horrible lamia spider hybrid from hell and that can’t be right. Ahahahahahaha.”

“I am not from what you humans call Hell, no. The place I'm from is much worse than that." The monster leaned in closer, closer, and then sniffed at her. "You're the oldest maiden I've found yet, but you'll do."

"Fuck you!" Yumiko drunkenly yelled back, throwing her spare bottle of booze at its head.  "I've just not found the right guy yet!"

The bottle shattered uselessly against the monster’s forehead. It bore its fangs menacingly. You might be thinking "as if it could bare fangs any other way," but no, it was necessary to point that out as it was an especially menacing baring of fangs.

“Eeek!” Yumiko realized that, perhaps, this was a bit more dangerous. And turned to run out of the alley. She got all of a meter before the monster raised its tail and shot out a thick fluid at her. It struck her, and she ended up tripping, rolling over, and pinned to a wall by what was a really thick web. “Oh my goooddd what is this!?” She groaned.

Because it seemed the universe was going to mock her lack of a sex life by showing the world, or at least this monster, some of what they were all missing. Large bits of her suit had been dissolved by the web, revealing one of her rather toned legs. Most of her blouse had also been dissolved, showing a white bra containing some boobs that Yumiko had ranted about how useless they were for somehow not being big enough to attract men. Plus a gut that had once been thin and trim, but the years had added a layer of chubbiness to them that she could never diet or exercise off.  In short, a perfectly fine body for a woman her age, but one men seemed determined to ignore

"I'd say you would pay for that, but there's not much worse I can do to you than what I was already going to," the monster said, swiftly approaching her. And now Yumiko was going to die a virgin. Great. The monster aimed it’s mouth right at Yumiko's throat. "Bon appetit."

"Seriously, you're in Japan, an itadakimasu would've been more appropriate..." Yumiko burbled.

Then, something weird happened. Yes, really. Something weird happened when she was webbed to a wall by a giant spider-lamia. As for that weird thing, well... Ever see Alien? Ever get freaked out by what happened to John Hurt's character?

Well, Yumiko had only watched that movie for the first time yesterday. So, when she felt something moving inside her chest, she sort of panicked a little bit. Then when a little head poked its way out of her bra, she started to freak out harder.

"Hi! Please transform."

"What the actual fuck?" the lamia-spider and Yumiko said in unison, albeit one with a more drunken and slovenly tone than the other.

"You are the long awaited reincarnation of the magical warrior Sparkling Love Star!" the head said. It crawled all the way out of her barely there blouse and... it was a rat. An actual rat, sitting on her breast. Staring up at her and speaking. "We need you to fight for Love and Dreams once again!"

"Right, that's me made my mind up," Yumiko said. "I'm joining alcoholics anonymous first thing tomorrow morning. Thank you for the intervention Mister Talking Rat and hideous hellbeast, it was most timely."

"All you have to do is say the phrase Sparkling Lover Unite!" the rat said quite insistently. "I'm sure this soldier of the Eternal Night Empire will only be stunned by my appearance before it realises -"

“Wait did you say this is Sparkling Love Star!?” The monster said, “That’s absurd! She’s far too old, and drunk, and honestly kind of pathetic to be the final Sparkling Lover!?”

"Ack! Please say the phrase Sparkling Lover Unite!"

"No!" Yumiko said. "I'm not playing along with my drunken delusions, that's a sign of madness. Scurry off now and let me cry myself to sleep, because I'm not saying your stupid phrase."

"Eh?" the rat said, tilting its head to the side a little. "What phrase is it you're not wanting to say?"

"Sparkling Lover Unite."

Clang. It was as if something had dropped inside her body, deep deep within. A burst of light shot out of every pore of her being, tearing through the thick gooey web as if it were tissue paper. It did a number on her clothes as well, what was left of them. Yumiko looked down, and felt as though she was spinning. A pole of light appeared next to her, and she grabbed it instinctively, then lifted a leg to wrap around it as a mysterious something travelled up her body.

A frilly skirt sort of poofed into existence around her hips. They did not… fit. The skirt was clearly built for someone who did not have the hips Yumiko had. They strained against her side and barely covered her panties.

Then there was the top. It was about half the side it really should have been, and there was actually a little bit of underboob showing. Not that you could easily tell thanks to all the weird star shaped decorations all over it. The whole outfit had a sort of black motif... maybe dark blue?  Hard to tell in the dim light of the alley.

Atop her head was a silver circlet, with a star shaped diamond in the center. It was also too small, and she felt a slight headache as the thing strained against her forehead. At the very least it seemed to be stretching...

"No! I cannot allow you to revive!" the freaky lamia-spider said, and then lunged for her.

"Tee hee! Sparkling Love Star is reborn!" a voice that sounded like Yumiko's said. It sounded oddly distant. "Ultimate Technique! <i>Starlight Purification Beam!"</i>

Yumiko sat up, her back hurt like hell, but not as much as her head did. Oh, that's why, she'd managed to somehow miss her futon when getting ready for bed. Missed it by half the length of the room.

"Ugh, what a freaky dream..." she groused. "Shouldn't have read that transcript while drinking. It put all kinds of funny ideas in my -"

Then she noticed it. The wand in her hand. The skirt that didn't cover shit. The top that was half the size it should have been.

"What the hell is this shit?!" she yelled.

"Language!" said a talking rat. "What sort of example does that set for an impressionable familiar like me?"

The rat spoke with the voice of a young boy. Around ten or so by Yumiko’s estimates. Very chipper sounding too.

"I'm going back to sleep for a little bit, wake me up when the world makes sense again."

"You want me to wake you up at the heat death of the universe?" the rat asked. "Look, if you want to change out of those clothes all you have to do is say Sparkling Love Sleepy."

Yumiko pinched herself. She didn't wake up. Nor did she feel remotely tipsy. She tried a few more times, just to make sure, even slapping herself a little bit. But no. Reality refused to adjust back to something more sensible, which could only mean one thing:

"It was all real?" she asked.

"No, you say Sparkling Love Sleepy," the rat patiently said. "Look, can I get to the exposition already? I've been wanting to get to the exposition part all night. My father said the exposition part is the fun part."

Somehow, Yumiko had the feeling that this young rat's father was screwing with his head. Whatever. She really didn't want to have to deal with this shit right now anyway.

1. Exposition time!
2. Stuff exposition she's late for work.
3. Meanwhile, Hiroshi's daughter meets up with Akari to discuss their plans to locate Sparkling Love Star for they are her future allies.
4. Something else