"I'm gonna have to look up how California gun laws interact with magical girls, 'cause otherwise it would be super illegal to sell a minor a gun here."

"I'm pretty sure you're allowed! As long as you don't have a record. If you have a record it is probably the opinion of the state of California that you should be bitten in half by a neon green flying shark."

"Huh. I should check if I have a record or not." 

"You don't know?"

"There was an incident with some illegal fireworks that I was sorta near. I don't think I was ever formally accused of anything..."

"Wow, okay, hopefully that doesn't get you to sharkbait territory."

"Worst case scenario I pick up some knives! Anyway, I do know for sure I was never convicted of anything, so there's that."

"Can't hurt!"

Lan Zhan takes Wei Ying's hand and squeezes it. "We will find a way."

She's going to submit her magical girl application as soon as she gets home. No way in hell is she letting Wei Ying do this alone. 

"I'll be fine, Lan Zhan." 

If Wei Ying were capable of taking adequate care of herself NONE OF THIS WOULD BE HAPPENING. 

"I'm off to go find where I'm putting my suitcase down and I'll swing by to pick you up after dinner time tonight?"

"Sure!" 

"See you guys later. Text me if you need a ride," she tells Shi Qingxuan.

"Will do!"

She lets herself out the window and swoops away.

And Rhonda teleports off. 

Lan Zhan stays with Wei Ying a little while longer before going home, finishing filling out her application, and submitting it. 

Before Lan Zhan's application is responded to, the Imperial office sends Wei Ying a ticket to Shenyang for the registration process.

Okay. 

Nervewracking. 

Wei Ying hugs her siblings and gets on the plane. 

(Lan Zhan paces, frustrated by her inability to go with her.)

The process is pretty painless! They are curious about how she came up with the idea for her wish, and how well it works, but all in all the process is scarcely worth the flight.

She talks about her misgivings about the necessity of witches for magical girls to survive and how she wants to do something to reduce the impact of witches on the civilian population without starving magical girls, and doesn't leave any conspicuous gaps in her story where Noon's absence from the narrative is suspicious. 

And then she flies back home and hugs everyone some more and kills more witches with Shi Qingxuan. 

Shi Qingxuan buys her some simple pistols - turns out this is legal for magical girls even in California even if they have been near fireworks incidents - and brings Wei Ying to a range so she can learn to use them, though with a partner helping she doesn't need them inside witches. Shi Qingxuan can slice one up before Wei Ying's too run down holding it still for her.

It also turns out Wei Ying was not formally accused of being involved! (Which she was not, she assures Shi Qingxuan. Their setup was terrible, Wei Ying would have done much better.)

"At some point I want to test what I can do that's more complicated than holding them still," she muses. 

"You can't exactly get the familiars to do a conga dance and put it on Tiktok."