Chapter 12 (Keisuke Satō)

Chapter 12 is the twelfth chapter of the Little Witch Academia manga series adaptation illustrated by Keisuke Satō.
==Overview==
Akko worries about Jasminka's eating habits and forces her to make a diet for the school's physical measurements. While Jasminka dramatically loses weight in a single day, she reveals to her friends that because of a mistake as a child, a creature lives in her stomach and must eat constantly to keep it calm. Akko gives him a simple umeboshi. At night, Jasminka becomes the beast and begins to devour the other students. After deducting that the beast detests salt like the Leylines, Akko manages to use his salty pickled plums to save Jasminka. After apologizing to her, the next morning they both leave the diet and Akko asks Jasminka about putting a creature in her stomach to keep from getting fat.
==Summary==
The chapter begins with Akko eating umeboshi for lunch as part of the preparation for the upcoming physical exam while accompanied by Lotte and Sucy. To her shock, the same cannot be said with Jasminka who eats a lot of food as usual.
Worried that Jasminka's current eating habit will make her excessively fat and that she'll be much more attractive if she is slimmer, Akko pleads to the Russian girl to have a diet. Their conversation piqued Lotte and Sucy's curiosity as they never saw the chubby young witch getting fatter despite consuming a lot of food seemingly every day. Though Jasminka eventually relented and decided to give it a try, it becomes apparent that something frightful against her from complying with such a request and the Japanese witch-in-training's good efforts to bust her every time she attempted to sneak a snack or two (even during the afternoon class much to their teacher's chagrin) doesn't certainly help. Akko even goes so far as switching her place with Constanze to continue monitor the Russian's diet progress that night, much to Amanda's concern as the Russian girl began to display withdrawal-like symptoms that obviously worse than it seemed by that point. It is then the frightened Jasminka revealed that she ate a hunger faery by mistake when she was a child and forced to constantly eat to keep it appeased as the result since then. As much as she is skeptical with her friend's story, Akko reluctantly shares Jasminka one of her umeboshi to ease her a bit before calling it a day.
Later that night, loud growls echo throughout Amanda's dorm room, getting on her nerves. Knowing the noise came from Jasminka, she sneaks some snacks to her Russian friend without the sleeping Akko's consent only to be attacked by something beneath the latter's sheet. Akko wakes up shortly afterwards, and is greeted by the sight of the Irish-American partially devoured along with Jasminka's snacks. Noticing her presence, the mysterious assailant attacks her with its dark-colored tentacles, freaking her out and prompting her to rush for her dorm room to seek Lotte, Sucy, and Constanze's aid. Hilariously, the Japanese witch-in-training stopped in her tracks upon realizing her scream disturbed the others' sleep and hastily apologizes to those who already awake before continuing. By the time she is about to assess the situation to her friends however, things already spiraled out of control; on the outside, the demonic faery in Jasminka's stomach has begun its rampage, manifesting a car-sized replica of itself about his host so it can consume everything on sight. To make matter worse, Diana, Hannah, and Barbara, who just have arrived at the scene, were unceremoniously devoured before they could even do anything about it.
After all efforts to stop the demonic faery failed (the beast is too fast to be struck by Lotte and Sucy's Metamorphosis Magic Spell and Constanze both gives in to the fear and exhausted much of her magic energy reserves for playing games with Sucy earlier), the remorseful Akko steps in to reach her friend. Though the endeavor resulted in the Japanese witch-in-training to be eaten alongside her roommates minus Constanze, something unexpectedly caused the beast to regurgitate everything it just ate starting with her. The newly recovered but still disoriented Lotte and Akko soon discovered why; the hunger faery is susceptible to salt in Akko's jar of umeboshi it accidentally ate alongside the Japanese witch-in-training as much as how the Ley Lines got affected by the same substance. With no time to lose, Akko poured her remaining umeboshi into the hunger faery’s throat, knocking the beast out cold and released its hold over its host in a burst of smoke. As the smoke clears, Akko tearfully apologizes to Jasminka for not believing her story.
Predictably, the entire commotion awakes Finnelan also. To spare Jasminka from troubles she (Akko) unwittingly caused, Akko and the reluctant Sucy take the blame by claiming the whole chaos being the result of the Manbavaran's experiment. As the result, not only the two have to clean up the mess, but also Sucy picks Akko up as her "messy guinea pig" from there on.
On the next morning, Akko, Lotte, and Jasminka eat sandwiches together despite Lotte's concern whether it will affect her diet. The chapter ends with Akko asks Jasminka whether eating a hunger faery truly prevents one from getting fatter and how she do that, much to Jasminka's shock and Sucy's dismay...
==Order of appearances==
==Trivia==
*The chapter reveals the motive behind Jasminka's eating habits, which previously proposed in the franchise's official Panel at AnimeNEXT 2017 (and repeated at AnimeExpo).Interesting Little Witch Academia character backstory tidbits from TRIGGER Panel at AX2017 from Reddit.com
*Considering her suite is located in East Dormitory while Akko and Amanda's West Dormitory, it's possible that Diana was informed by one of panicked students who managed to reach her in the midst of the rampage of Jasminka's hunger faery.
==References==
Category:Manga chapters
Category:Little Witch Academia (Keisuke Satō)