“Thank you for having me today!” yelled a short girl wearing an oversized witch hat and robes.

  Seliah stood in front of Adah and the twins and saluted, though her hand was hidden under the wide brim of her hat. Ami stepped forward and pushed down the girl’s hat so that it covered her eyes.

  “What are you saluting for, ya weirdo?” Ami said. “This ain’t the army.”

  In response, Seliah leaped back and readjusted her hat, now holding it in its proper place with both hands.

  “It’s a way to show respect to more experienced magical girls,” Seliah said, jutting her head toward Ami. “It’s good manners—something you could learn a thing or two about!”

  Ami laughed and said, “I don’t need that crap. People know whether I respect them or not. Good manners don’t fit my character anyway.”

  “How should I interpret that after you did something so disrespectful to me?” Seliah demanded.

  “Oh, this isn’t disrespect,” Ami said. “This is just sisterly love. Ask Emi, she knows all about it.”

  Without warning, and with a motion she’d clearly practiced to perfection, Ami jabbed a finger into Emi’s gut. Her sister immediately fell to her knees and clutched her stomach with both arms. She only allowed her weakness to be abused for a moment, however, as she soon composed herself and then lunged forward, tackling Ami’s legs and bringing her to the ground. The two of them rolled around in the grass of the agency office’s yard, wrestling like no one else was around.

  Adah had learned long ago that it was best to let the twins burn off energy like this from time to time, so she ignored their scuffle and spoke to Seliah instead.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “And thanks for joining our little coalition. I guess this will be the second time you’re helping our team out.”

  Seliah had been watching the twins fight with wide eyes, but tore her gaze away to look at Adah now.

  “I should thank you,” Seliah said. “It was Dew—um, Ami—who saved me the first time, and it’s really your team who’s helping me now.”

  “Well, I’m hoping we won’t have to keep track of who is helping who moving forward,” Adah said. “That’s the point of this whole plan: to cooperate for everyone’s benefit.”

  Preparations for the carnival were proceeding smoothly, and Seliah’s visit to the Last Light office today was the next step in those preparations.

  Adah could acknowledge that her timeline for the event was aggressive, as usual, but she still wanted to aim for hosting it at the start of the new year. To have any hope of pulling that off, she and the Committee needed to make every day between now and then count. They only had a little over a month to put all the details together.

  Thus, they set out to divide and conquer. Grace and Michel began tackling various logistical challenges—scouting and securing a venue, researching what permits they would need and what applications those would require, and hiring a production team that could execute a multi-faceted event like this flawlessly.

  Hosting an event like this without any sponsors would get expensive fast, but this was precisely the reason why their team had set aside so much money to reinvest in the agency. Even after the massive payout from the B-Rank spider job, they had foregone splurging on any luxuries in favor of ensuring the longevity and flexibility of the business. The flexibility that having deep pockets provided would come in handy paying for the upfront costs of running the carnival.

  Preparation was also the reason Rika was not with the rest of the team today. She had agreed to handle the early stages of songwriting by herself. Adah and the twins would join later in the process, mostly to offer ideas on what they’d feel comfortable singing and to contribute lyrics where they could. Despite her uncertainty over actually performing the songs, Rika quickly became engrossed in writing them. Regardless of how the concert itself played out, having a more expansive library of music would be a major benefit to their team, and was even something they could monetize in the future.

  Seb was working equally hard on the creative direction of the carnival, and he and Adah had plans to meet and review his preliminary themes later this week. The sooner his ideas crystallized into a fleshed-out theme, the sooner they could start promoting the event. Even without a finalized date, an enticing teaser like Adah and Rika had dropped for their debut song could stir up a lot of anticipation.

  With the Committee chugging along on all fronts, Adah was freed up to act as a leader for all the participating teams. That was what had led Seliah here today.

  Leading up to the event, it’d be good for the Last Light to be seen together with the other coalition teams. The teams openly cooperating would spark discussion among fans and keep the carnival from feeling like a spur of the moment cash grab once it was announced. People would believe the participating teams actually had each other’s backs.

  Of course, the hope was that their cooperation would go beyond mere appearances. They genuinely needed to support each other. They would have to form an unbreakable front in opposition to Thibault, and doing that would require trust between the teams. It was up to the Last Light to take the initiative on building that trust.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  So, while the Committee handled their respective jobs and the team waited for Neil’s photos to come back, Adah looked for ways to connect with the coalition teams.

  DreamRise would require the least effort on this front. Although their teams had butt heads somewhat publicly, they had also shown an ability to move past their conflict during the battle against the hydra. Adah’s support during Ekki’s recovery had also reinforced the idea that their teams were willing to put their personal feud aside when push came to shove. Beyond that, DreamRise could get more involved in promoting the event once Ekki was healthier.

  With a team like Fifty Flip, it’d be best to find another K-Rank or N-Rank mission to tackle together, similar to how the Last Light had coordinated with DreamRise in the past. If such an opportunity failed to present itself, they could find another means of collaborating in public. Taking on a basic mission with two full teams wouldn’t look good for either of them, however.

  That left the lone member of Orbit Promo: Celestial Seliah.

  Adah had asked Ami to invite the girl to their agency today with the goal of completing a D- or C-Rank job together. They wouldn’t be overly picky—this was just a means to build some comradery with the girl. With Rika focusing on music today, Seliah would function like a substitute, fitting into the team without much trouble.

  Grace would let the girls know once she found a suitable mission, so the four of them had planned to familiarize themselves with each other’s spells in the meantime. That was before the twins started fighting, at least.

  “I guess you’ve already seen Ami in action,” Adah said to Seliah. “So maybe you and I can get a head start while those two duke it out?”

  “Yes, please!” Seliah answered in a hurry. “I’d really like to get a closer look at your weapon, if that’s all right?”

  Adah and the twins had already transformed while they’d waited for Seliah, and the girl in a witch hat had of course already activated her own magic. Summoning Beleth’s Bloodletter was no big deal for Adah at this point. She had shown off the scythe enough that it was no longer a mystery among fans, and had instead become a symbol of Heartbreak instead. As for Adah herself, she had long since grown accustomed to the warmth of the weapon’s handle and the heartbeat that pulsed within it.

  She held out her arm and called upon the weapon. As the scythe materialized in her hand, so too did a raven appear on Seliah’s shoulder. Adah had heard from the twins—this was the girl’s mascot, Shikk. Izzy joined the scene not long after, appearing and floating by Adah’s side.

  “So this is the machine that has the Keteriel in an uproar,” the bird said. “How ridiculous. It wasn’t long ago they had convinced themselves that girl was their answer. Now they’ve already moved on.”

  “Machine?” Seliah repeated.

  “Keteriel?” Adah followed.

  Izzy sighed and flew between the two girls, hovering at eye level.

  “I warned you the fools among my kind have an affinity toward obscure names,” he said. “In adopting new names for themselves, they were also compelled to name the group. Thus, the Keteriel. Although the reason for ‘machine’ is a matter of perspective. What you see as a weapon is more akin to the Magedars to my kind—a creation that utilizes magic but is based on the tools and technologies of humanity.”

  “That doesn’t explain what a Keteriel is to me at all,” Seliah said, turning to the raven perched on her shoulder.

  “You would have been luckier to have never found out,” Shikk said. “Nothing good can come from meeting them, but perhaps there is some use in knowing about them.”

  Shikk and Izzy worked together to explain the rift between the two groups of mascots to Seliah. None of what they said was news to Adah at this point. Shikk’s attitude toward the Keteriel seemed even more negative than Izzy’s, and Adah gathered from the way he spoke about them that he must have been one of the mascots they had sought to ostracize.

  The raven, like Sheffa’s mascot Feena, harbored no ill will toward Izzy though. The pig must have made proper amends for his past actions if the other mascots were so forgiving of him. He seemed, at least, genuinely remorseful. He had even stood up for Adah when the Keteriel took an interest in her. How might the situation have played out if Izzy had still been committed to their goals?

  “That’s enough about ancient history,” Shikk declared after answering a slew of questions from Seliah. “You wanted to see the machine up close, didn’t you? Now’s your chance.”

  Seliah looked toward Adah as if asking for permission, so Adah nodded and held the scythe in front of herself in open palms.

  The witch girl stepped closer and inspected the weapon like it was an ancient artifact unearthed after a year-long archaeological dig. She even took off her hat for a better view, revealing a messy length of black hair—its messiness no doubt exacerbated by Ami playing with the girl’s hat earlier.

  “Can you make the blade come out?” she asked.

  Adah obliged, and Seliah only grew more interested in the scythe once its smoky blade was released. She knelt down near the end of the weapon and looked at the smoke from above, below, and every other conceivable angle.

  “It’s interesting,” she remarked. “This magic must be a conduit within a conduit, don’t you think? It’s magic itself, but it also absorbs and releases the energy you take from the Cruelties. The scythe houses the magic, and the magic houses the energy. I can understand why the mascots are interested in studying it.”

  “How much exactly do you know about magic, Seliah?” Adah asked, glancing over at Izzy.

  “Not enough,” the girl replied. “I want to learn more. If I could find a way to guarantee I’m offered a weapon like this once I unlock one, that would be ideal. I’ve seen videos of all the hands coming out of it. Even if you’re alone, this weapon lets you fight as if there’s a whole team with you.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that, Selichi,” Ami said, calling the girl by the nickname she'd assigned her yet again. Ami was resting on her knees after seemingly forcing Emi into submission, but not for long. “We c—”

  Emi’s loss lasted only a moment. She rushed toward her sister and tackled her again, this time jamming her shoulder into Ami’s gut and bringing her back to the dirt.

  “What the fuck?” Ami managed to wheeze out. “I can’t breathe.”

  Adah was also confused why Emi had suddenly upped her aggression level. But, then again, she was often confused by how the twins interacted.

  Emi had fully gained the upper hand in this new bout, though her approach to fighting was odd. Instead of putting her sister into some kind of choke hold or other submission as the twins so often did to each other, she merely clasped her hands over Ami’s mouth and held her head down.

  However, their strange fight was soon brought to a close by a voice calling out from the side window of the agency office.

  Grace stuck her head out the window and said, “You four ready to go? We got lucky—there’s a C-Rank for you today.”

  “Perfect timing,” Adah said. “Grab it, please!”

  A C-Rank mission was ideal. Anything lower would be too weak to draw much attention, and wouldn’t be a suitable opponent for each magical girl to show off her spells. A B-Rank, however, could push Seliah past her limits. For their first outing as a group, something in the middle was ideal.

  “You can only learn so much from watching me hold the scythe,” Adah said to Seliah. “How about seeing it in action?”