Month 2, Year 1 of Chief Technocrat Meryl’s Rule

  ***

  The observation room was empty, which was a stark violation of protocol; it had been for the past twenty minutes or so. Finally, the door swung open and Stevyn, the head researcher of the Interdimensional Containment and Research Institute, entered the room, together with junior researcher Claudia. Their faces were flushed, with sweat glistening on their foreheads besides. They quietly sat down in their chairs, while an awkward silence filled the room.

  Why did we do that?!

  This was the only thought coursing through Stevyn’s mind right now as he barely remembered how things started. Everything was as usual: Their intern Filo moved into the containment zone to do maintenance on some of the equipment and keep an eye on Marisa besides, then Claudia and him shared a coffee to discuss recent events, and then…

  He barely dared to recall the details. There was a certain electric charge between them, and in a wild motion, he picked the woman roughly two thirds his own size off the ground, they kissed, moved to a storage facility, and then… they did it. Her small frame was entirely bent to his will, without offering any resistance, and he could still taste her saliva and sweat in his mouth.

  He violently shook his head and looked at Claudia, whose face was still flushed and who shot him some glances from time to time. She was a beautiful woman, he paradoxically only noticed now, after everything else. Her auburn hair was neatly braided and slung over her shoulder, and her slender figure had a certain allure. She was fourteen years younger than him, which only added to his guilty feelings, and as her green eyes met his again, he finally made a decision to speak up.

  I must clear the air. I have to take responsibility!

  “I am so sorry, Claudia. That was a clear abuse of power and entirely inappropriate. I will take full responsibility and… present myself to law enforcement if you felt in any way, shape or form coerced into this.”

  “Oh shut up, Stevyn,” Claudia sharply interrupted him, and the much taller man shrunk a little in his chair.

  “If I didn’t want any of that, you would have known immediately. Now help me review this footage to make sure that nothing happened in the time we were doing it like rabbits.”

  Stevyn nodded and set all cameras back twenty minutes to retrace Marisa’s movements during that time. She was on her way home from school, and it looked like an utterly unremarkable walk home. Filo, in the meantime, was doing maintenance on the holo-panels which displayed the horizon, checking connections and starting various synchronization checks, like making a plane appear. Its white contrails were a valuable indicator of whether the panels lined up perfectly. Still, despite this he had the urge to keep talking to Claudia.

  “Are you on…?”

  “No.”

  “But I…”

  “I know.”

  “So you could get…”

  “Yes.”

  Stevyn’s heart hammered a little faster again and he cleared his throat.

  “I realize I’m doing things in the entirely wrong order, here, but… how about we go and grab dinner together after work? I know a great place.”

  Despite being in deep concentration while she kept an eye on the monitors, the corner of Claudia’s mouth moved up in a little smile.

  “I’d love that.”

  Claudia herself was completely flustered by what transpired, merely keeping up a professional front, Stevyn would later realize. And with both of them like that, it was no wonder that they missed the small detail that the recordings of Marisa’s way home and Filo’s maintenance work had an entirely different date attached as a timestamp, which would betray them as old recordings.

  ***

  20 minutes earlier

  ***

  Mana walked back home from school, which was boring as ever. People quickly got used to her new cat ears and tail, which sprouted last month without any prior warning; she remembered crying herself to sleep that day, from all the pain she was experiencing. Her parents were with her, thankfully, but aside from some regular painkillers, they couldn’t exactly help her out with that. Supposedly, this was the last batch of mutations she would experience from her exposure to otherworldly energies, and lucky her, she didn’t exactly fancy getting a wet nose, large paws instead of hands, or even turn into a cat entirely.

  Now that her ears and tail were here, however, she got all the support she needed. Her mother, a skilled seamstress, adjusted her clothes so her tail could peek out, without indecently lifting the skirt of her school uniform, or being squished against her back in a painful angle while wearing pants.

  Sometimes people touched her ears; it felt kind of nice, but at the same time it annoyed her a little bit. She let her parents pet them from time to time, which was a nice way to be pampered, but found that classmates were getting too handsy with them for their own good, so she soon banned people who weren’t her family or close friends from touching them.

  She had some worries about the usability of headphones, but her sister recently came back with a present for her: a headband with triangular speakers, mounted at the proper distance so they would be comfortable for her new ears. She was wearing said headphones today, listening to music on her way home as she walked past a strange girl she recognized.

  She wore her school uniform gyaru style, with loose socks and her skirt shortened extensively, while she wore her tie messily loose. She leaned against the wall, listlessly checking her phone, one leg raised with the foot planted against the wall behind her as she blew bubble gum into an admittedly impressively large bubble.

  Her hair was dyed pink, and from what Mana heard, she got in trouble for it a few times, but refused to dye it back to black or brown. Her name was Filo, and she moved into the region recently. She was two years older than Mana, attending the same all-girls high- and middle school.

  Her eyes met Mana’s, and she let her bubble pop before she removed the gum from her mouth and waved at her with a mischievous grin.

  “Heya, Manapi! First time I’m meeting you alone, is it?”

  “Uhm, yes…” Mana admitted quietly, shrinking a little as the gyaru came closer.

  “Haha, you don’t have to be that cautious around me, Manapi. I just want to get to know you better.”

  The gyaru reached out as if to pat her head, but pulled her hand back.

  “Right, right, you don’t like that, do you?”

  Mana nodded, and she was a little grateful that Filo remembered that much and respected her boundaries.

  “I’ve been hearing things about your sister and wanted to have a lil’ chat with you.”

  Mana’s ears perked up and she looked directly at the gyaru, who smiled at her.

  “Really? About Marisa? Please tell me!”

  ***

  Mana wasn’t sure how she got into this situation. She found herself pinned against a wall in a side alley, away from curious eyes, with Filo deeply kissing her. Somehow, she didn’t dislike this, despite something at the back of her mind trying to remind her that this wasn’t normal. As they separated from each other again, Filo licked her lips, narrowing her eyes with mischief.

  “This is how I learn everything there’s to know about a person, you know… the way someone responds to a kiss is like an open book.”

  “Uh-huh.” Mana answered, while her head was still spinning.

  “Anyway, I promised you to tell you something about your sister,” Filo said with a grin, leaning a little closer, and Mana nodded enthusiastically.

  “She’s not your sister, really. I know, it sounds crazy, with her looking exactly like you, but it’s true.”

  Mana furrowed her brow and shook her head to clear up her addled mind.

  “Wait, then… how? Why are my parents telling me that she’s my sister? Why is she pretending to be my sister?”

  “Mh, she’s something that popped up after the worlds overlapped. Y’know, the Kawaguchi Incident?”

  Mana’s eyes went wide and she nodded.

  “So she’s from another world?”

  “M-hm! Heard there’s something called Doppelg?ngers. People from another world who look like people from ours. There’s one for everybody, I heard. I’m guessing your parents volunteered to pretend she’s theirs to let her grow up here.”

  Mana’s eyes went even wider.

  “So that means…”

  “Yep. There’s nothing wrong with you going for her. You love her, don’t you?”

  Mana turned red and looked away, but nodded.

  “Good. Here’s a present for you.”

  Filo fished a bottle out of her school bag. It looked like a regular old water bottle, but something struck Mana as odd about it.

  “Make your sister drink some of that, and she’ll be honest with her feelings for you.”

  “…is that a drug?” Mana asked skeptically.

  “Pff, no,” Filo snorted before she leaned in, whispering conspiratorially. “It’s magic.”

  August 2025

  ***

  Ayame sat in her office at Atelier Antoinette, though today she was a little too nervous to get any work done. She kept scrolling through social media, reading the comments about the special program she was part of just yesterday.

  People shared their experiences with Minerva Crimson and Bellona Azure, recollecting how swiftly they were saved from danger. How the Magical Girls never stayed long to bask in praise, but simply did their duty and moved on.

  So far everything looked good. Some people even unearthed videos they took with their phones ages ago but forgot in their camera rolls; with Lethe defeated, these were now restored back to their pristine state to be shared with the entire world.

  AKITO revealed herself to be the artist behind ‘Kawaguchi Magic’, and mentioned that Minerva Crimson was gracious enough to give her permission to continue drawing her doujins, and the Celestial Sisters fandom started calling them ‘teacher’, which almost immediately resulted in artists drawing Minerva Crimson and Bellona Azure as high school teachers in pencil skirts wearing tights, pointing a ruler at the viewer in a provocative manner, or other, more explicit versions of that selfsame scenario. The similarity to Seika’s usual office lady appearance made Ayame chuckle, admittedly.

  “Right, everything went well… time for work.”

  Ayame got up and stepped into the larger room where some of her colleagues were busy on the sewing machines. She stepped towards her own station, looking at a sheet showing the pattern of her newest creation.

  I can probably add the frills with the time I still have left today.

  She was about to sit down as the radio and TV in the room turned themselves on; it startled Ayame, and the rest of her colleagues, especially as those devices and every phone in the area played the same sound, a chiptune sounding bleep which shifted from a low to a high pitch and back. A sound usually reserved for when a certain country across the sea launched missiles over Japan.

  The Civil Protection Alarm?!

  Ayame froze and looked at the TV, together with her colleagues; It bore a simple message.

  Self-replicating ghost attack in the grater Tokyo metropolitan area. Seek shelter immediately!

  All the color drained from Ayame’s face as the image on the screen switched to news reports about the ongoing situation. The streets of Tokyo were filled with purple bubbles, and the skies were filled with strange ghostly shapes. An exasperated reporter’s voice accompanied the images.

  “This is Oyama speaking, reporting from above Shibuya. Strange phantom shapes have taken over the city, trapping the people in purple bubbles while hunting for yet uncaptured people. They can phase through walls and fly and are multiplying at an alarming rate! All citizens are advised to stay hidden inside and away from windows! Avoid being seen until the situation has been brought under control! Follow all guidelines publicly available on the interdimensional incident emergency response website!”

  Ayame stepped towards the windows of the workshop and quickly closed the blinds, though she couldn’t resist the urge to peek outside. She could see the main street from here, and purple bubbles on it.

  “Damn it…” she whispered under her breath, walking back to the middle of the room. Her colleagues were waiting and looking at her with scared expressions.

  “How does it look?”

  “Not good. There are bubbles within sight. We should lay low until the situation is cleared up.”

  The other women nodded and continued to wait, quietly. They could hear movement outside when some of the shades passed through the streets. The noise of the TV and radio didn’t appear to attract them, given that the same broadcast was being played on every device in every building.

  Ayame kept following the reports for now, but she clutched the ring with her escape route.

  I shouldn’t let others know I’m involved with all of this. But if we’re cornered and I don’t have another choice…

  The news reports were now switching between different helicopters. One zoomed in on the streets and focused on three floating figures.

  “This is Kitamura. We have confirmed sighting of the Celestial Sisters. They appear to discuss strategy with… who is that?”

  Ayame felt some relief as she saw Luna, Sol and Mana together, with the witch standing on a magic barrier while the two idols were simply flying.

  Luna shouted something towards Mana, who quickly nodded and turned around, walking through a portal. Luckily for the young girl, her large hat obscured her face.

  “Uh… this is Kitamura again. The unknown Magical Girl, who looks like a witch, has vanished.”

  “This is Oyama. The ‘witch’ has appeared on our end.”

  The camera feed changed, showing Mana above Shibuya and looking around frantically. Shades approached her and she blasted them away with one of her signature spell books, then she jumped off her platform, into the streets below. Ayame followed her with worried eyes, clenching her fists.

  This is all Maria’s doing…! I could have ended her a few days ago if I just pulled myself together…

  “The witch is gone! And… no, wait! She’s coming back up! She’s accompanied by the Kuma Group! It appears she pulled them out of those strange bubbles!”

  Ayame let out a sigh of relief, sinking on the floor. Her colleagues were still panicked, but they kept quiet, looking at the covered window with uncertainty.

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  “Do we really have to wait in here until it’s over?” one asked.

  “There’s no other choice. If any of those things notice us in here, it’s over. We’re captured and create more of those things…” Ayame whispered.

  The women nodded, and Ayame gave them a little smile.

  “And don’t worry. With the Celestial Sisters and this witch, and all the other Magical Girl groups on it, this problem will be over faster than you think. Everything will be alright.”

  Ayame gave the other women a reassuring smile and was made a liar a second later. An obsidian-black blade suddenly cut into the wall of the office building from the outside and cut a large gash into it; the cut if left behind burned with unnatural, black fire, and soon more cuts followed, carving a rectangular hole into the wall. Ayame’s colleagues screamed, and she clenched her fist around her magic ring.

  She didn’t want to use her portal ring and let the others know about her connections; to her misfortune, she wouldn’t get to choose whether she would make such a reveal. The wall burst apart and a small rock hit Ayame on the brow, knocking her over, while ghostly shades spilled into the room. People, animals, heroes, villains, whatever strange or silly dreams humans had spilled into the building, and the screaming around Ayame was soon silenced as her colleagues were trapped in dream bubbles of their own. But for some reason, Ayame was spared.

  “Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize your voice, Ayame?” Maria asked in a cold tone, stepping into the building in her full Dream Empress disguise as Ayame tried to unblur her vision and scrambled to get on her feet.

  “A Vtuber, really? I thought you were a little classier than that. But that’s beside the point, really…”

  Ayame froze as she felt cold obsidian pressed against her throat and made eye contact with her masked ex-girlfriend. The bloodshot eyes underneath betrayed the rage that was hidden under the neutral expression of the mask.

  “They’re alive… and you know them. So, you… will have to answer for quite a few things, Ayame! And this time you won’t get away with just a whipping!”

  “Right, so just make sure that they don’t touch you! You’ll have to split your responsibilities between rescuing people from bubbles, destroying existing phantoms and protecting those already saved from further phantoms. The Kuma Group and Celestial sisters are in Shibuya, so you can definitely go there and help out! You’ll work faster if you all work together!” Mana explained to the freshly freed Flower Brigade, whose members looked a little embarrassed by the way they were caught.

  “R-right… we’ll do that. Thank you…” Cherry spoke with flushed cheeks. She couldn’t even muster her usual tsundere tendencies.

  “What about you?” Violet, the leader, asked Mana.

  “Me? I’m going to look for the Dream Empress who’s behind this,” Mana declared with a little grumble, then she dismissed the Flower Brigade with a little wave of her hand. The girls took off to get to Shibuya, while Mana looked at the streets below. Hundreds, if not thousands, of dream phantoms were swarming around almost the same number of bubbles, which continued to slowly add to their forces.

  “She’s way too powerful for some run of the mill villainess!” Mana complained, and Portal answered.

  “This city is a perfect, fertile ground for her ability to manifest. Millions of people, squeezed together in the world’s largest city… exposed to ghosts that can propagate by simply touching people. With all these factors her relatively simple ability turns utterly terrifying.”

  Mana grimaced, “What will happen to them if we don’t get them out?”

  “I would say starvation, but it’s more likely they’ll be turned into husks long before that. Every phantom they create drains their vitality. It can be restored with food and rest, so the damage is not permanent once they are freed, but the way things are going, the Dream Empress will have them create soldiers for her until they expire.”

  Mana balled her hands into fists and a few tears of rage ran down her cheeks.

  “I hope Mama and Papa are still safe.”

  She shook her head, sending some tears flying before she looked up into the sky, where multiple helicopters were flying, recording what was happening in the city. Mana pulled the brim of her hat over her eyes, though she wasn’t sure how much that would help.

  “Why is she attacking like this right now? Is the High Enchantress making her move?” Mana jumped through a portal while she spoke, into the infinite library, and from there she opened multiple portals to look at the various parts of town.

  “It doesn’t appear like it. This is too… random. Almost like it’s supposed to keep the city’s defenders busy… oh!”

  “What? What is the issue, Portal?” Mana asked, blasting a phantom that got too close to one of her portals.

  “You should look for anyone who might be of interest to this Dream Empress!”

  Mana tilted her head, then her eyes widened as she finally understood.

  “Miss Takanashi!”

  ***

  “…the Prime Minister is evacuating to an undisclosed location…”

  “…bears striking resemblance to an incident six years ago during which…”

  “…Celestial Sisters and other Magical Girls are engaged in combat and rescue operations…”

  “…the United States embassy announced a plan to contain the possible global threat and bomb the affected parts of the city if the situation isn’t under control within…”

  The news reports kept flooding her ears with unwanted information while Ayame barely stayed conscious. She groaned, then screamed as Maria kicked her in the ribs again.

  “And to think I apologized to you! You were probably laughing at me behind my back. ‘Ohh, that stupid Maria couldn’t even kill my friends!’ Is that what you were thinking, huh?!”

  Another kick, and a stabbing pain shot through Ayame’s side as tears filled her eyes.

  “Go on. Say something!” Maria shouted, bringing her heel into a dangerous position above Ayame’s ribcage.

  “Where are your Magical Girl friends? Where are they?! How did they survive?! I stabbed one of those bitches in the heart!”

  Ayame gritted her teeth and looked at her right, bejeweled hand. She could summon a portal and run to Madame Bille’s place, but she didn’t like the thought of leaving her colleagues all alone with a cruel woman like Maria. No. Her eyes were on some of the other rings she wore.

  “Okay… okay! I’ll talk!” Ayame said with a strained voice, rolling on her back. Maria appeared satisfied with that, so she planted her heel back on the ground and gestured for Ayame to speak.

  “…go on, then.”

  “…when you met me at your office, I was there because I wanted to kill you. And I’m going to do that right now.”

  She could see the surprise in the masked woman’s eyes, especially as an arrow of light manifested at the tip of her finger and shot towards Maria, hitting her right in her scarred shoulder. She let out a shrill scream, stumbling away from Ayame, who quickly got on her feet and ran outside.

  Come on… follow me! Away from my coworkers!

  Ayame got her wish, but not quite in the form she wanted. Maria flew out of the office, carried by her large, black wings, raising her scythe, ready to decapitate her. Ayame let out a scream and threw herself on the ground, just in time for the blade to soar past her.

  “You insufferable bitch! You’ll be lucky if I let you live after this! Give up and maybe I’ll let you get away with becoming my plaything! I’ll gladly turn you into the newest star of my next few movies.”

  Ayame got sick to her stomach imagining what sort of things Maria’s adult studio did to its female performers, so she readied another light arrow as her reply, pointing it at Maria.

  “Recall your ghosts, Maria! You want me, not anyone else!”

  The masked woman didn’t reply, so Ayame simply shot her arrow, this time aiming for her chest.

  Maria’s answer was swift: the magic arrow was hit by the scythe’s obsidian blade and harmlessly deflected to the side, while the masked woman jumped towards Ayame, scythe raised high. The blade hit a barrier which a ring erected around Ayame, crackling as it slid over the magical energies, blackening them in the process.

  “A mere delay!” she announced, leaning closer until Ayame could almost smell her breath. Cracks formed along the magic barrier and the eyes behind the mask narrowed, then she suddenly yanked her blade away, deflecting another arrow made of light.

  “What the…? Show yourself!”

  Another arrow, then another, and yet more, before a final one resulted in a fiery explosion engulfing the villainess as she attempted to parry it, then a shockwave hit the inferno and the villainess inside, catapulting her against the nearest wall.

  The young witch Mana jumped out of a portal by Ayame’s side, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  “Miss Takanashi, are you alright?!” she shouted, looking at her with big eyes.

  “Just some scrapes and a bruised rib… careful, she’s way more resilient than she looks!” Ayame warned Mana with a little gasp, but too late: She was tackled by the villainess and pinned to the nearby wall, while her bloodshot, hate-filled eyes looked at the young girl with murderous intent.

  “Another little bitch. And you know this one! I’ll pluck her limb from limb… rip out her ears, hang her by her tail…!”

  Mana struggled with Maria’s hand tightening around her jugular as her eyes already rolled back into her skull. Ayame could tell that she was firing off spells of some kind; shockwaves rocked Maria’s clothes and made them flutter like she was hit by sudden breezes, but she stood resolute, now that she was prepared.

  “Ambushing me… burning me… everyone’s so intent on ruining my beautiful skin with scars and burns…! I will make you regret this!”

  Ayame screamed as Maria raised a fist and punched Mana in the face, repeatedly. She struggled and kicked Maria, who cackled as she slowly bloodied the young girl’s face. After five of her inhuman punches, she tossed the unconscious witch aside and Ayame looked in horror at the girl; her nose was broken and her lips split open.

  “Look at her! Look what you did by being such a useless whore!” Maria spoke, kneeling down next to Ayame and putting an arm around her shoulder. Ayame’s lips trembled, and tears streamed down her face.

  “This is what happens when you open your legs for some pair of ‘heroes’ while being nothing more than a useless woman yourself. You become a liability, and people get hurt.”

  Ayame sobbed openly as Maria slid her hand over her shoulder and closed it around her throat, then she leaned closer to whisper.

  “I will kill this little girl now. You won’t be able to do anything about it,” she threatened, then she got up, raising her black scythe as if to hack Mana into two pieces.

  “But I can,” a strange, male voice spoke. A portal appeared under Mana, and her unconscious body simply slumped through to the other side.

  “Don’t be stupid, Miss Takanashi! Use your ring!” the voice shouted Ayame’s way, then there was only the empty street left, with Maria staring at it with bloodshot eyes.

  “I don’t think so…” she hissed under her breath before she sliced the ground, opening a wound in reality.

  “The traces of your world travel betray you, whoever you are!”

  She thrust her hand through the portal and pulled Mana back out, who woke up from all the sudden movement, groaning. She was rudely tossed on the ground, with Maria raising her scythe to finally decapitate her.

  I need to help her! Even if it’s just for a little while, I have to stop Maria!

  Ayame didn’t even realize that she was unconsciously gripping the Kuma Group’s hand mirror tightly in her hand.

  ***

  Mana’s mind was addled; pain mixed with partial numbness, and her mouth was filling with blood. She gasped and choked, spitting out as much of her bloodied spittle as she could before she turned on her back, immediately freezing in place. The masked villainess towered above her, with her black scythe raised for an execution. Mana tried to summon a magical barrier, but found that her swimming mind couldn’t focus at all on giving directions to her magic companion; trying to speak the command phrase also only resulted in her coughing as the gushing blood from her nose and split lips got into her airways.

  She weakly raised her arms to give herself the illusion of protection, awaiting the bitter end; but it never came. A strange, pink glow filled the edge of her vision, accompanied by a loud, metallic screech and the sound of a struggle. Mana let her arms fall back to her sides and looked up at the figure of Miss Takanashi, wearing a pink, frilled dress. She parried the scythe with a huge pair of scissors and broke away one half of them to counterattack. The villainess appeared too surprised by the sudden transformation to prepare a defense, so the blade cut her diagonally across the face. Her mask split apart, and she let out a pained scream, covering her face with a hand as blood gushed out.

  Ayame didn’t let up; she attacked the villainess like she was on borrowed time, visibly aiming to kill. Mana could only passively admire her; trying to move was still too painful, and it was all she could do to stay conscious.

  ***

  “Cutting my face! I’ll kill you slowly for that one, Ayame!” Maria shouted, swinging her scythe Ayame’s way. She dodged it to the best of her ability, but her left arm got hooked and she suffered a nasty gash on it before she could swing her blade to get Maria to let up. The wound burned, indicating that it was reaching her real flesh through the magic armor.

  Still, Ayame kept going, putting pressure on Maria to force her on the defensive. Her mind was racing with the simple objective of saving the young girl behind her.

  “Whoever you are, take her away now! I’ll keep her busy!” she shouted, smashing the handle of her blade into Maria’s face. She could hear a nasty crack and another scream, then she had to block a swing aimed at her. She heard the alarm of her Magical Girl form’s energy storage blaring in her mind, reminding her that she had less than a minute of emotional energy left to keep the transformation up, but she didn’t care, as long as she wouldn’t sit still and let a young girl die for her sake.

  She saw the young witch fall through a portal to safety and breathed a sigh of relief, even as her Magical Girl form failed and she kneeled in front of her murderous ex, holding her injured arm.

  “Was it worth it? For one stupid little child?” Maria asked, bringing the obsidian of her blade to Ayame’s throat.

  Ayame lifted her head, meeting Maria’s icy glare head-on. She could now see the gash across the villainesses’ face, diagonally from her left cheek across her nose to the right side of her forehead. Blood colored one of her eyes red, though they were both so bloodshot from rage that it barely made any difference.

  “It was,” she gave her answer and closed her eyes. Maria wouldn’t make it quick, she knew, but she still had no regrets… except for the pain her death would cause Seika and Miori.

  “Now I will…! Gah! Get off me, you piece of firewood!”

  Ayame blinked and opened her eyes again as she heard a struggle. Maria was fighting a man-sized marionette, which grabbed her scythe by the handle, locking the villainess into a contest of strength.

  “You miserable little…!” Maria kicked the marionette back and sliced it clean in half, with her scythe leaving behind black fire which consumed the cut areas of the wood. She turned towards Ayame, scythe raised again but stopped as the bisected marionette behind her spoke.

  “This is not your world to claim,” Nicola’s voice boomed through the alley, and Maria turned around again, grimacing.

  “And here I thought the Enchantress was keeping you busy… don’t get involved! This doesn’t concern you!”

  “Oh, I am already getting involved. I am dismantling every single one of your bubbles in the streets and slaughtering your shades. This is my world to subdue and conquer, and I will reign supreme!” Nicola shouted, putting on her best villainess act. To Ayame’s mind the situation was rather absurd: one full-blooded villainess penned against another who played pretend.

  Maria looked like she was about to scream in rage, but she was silenced as the marionette spoke again.

  “I may have attracted the attention of this world’s guardians…”

  Maria hesitated and turned towards the Marionette; just in time for a fireball to rock the alleyway with its explosion.

  Mana opened her eyes. There was no more pain or numbness, or any other nasty side effects of a concussion and split lips. The reason for that might have been the woman giving her a lap pillow, while applying healing energies to her whole body.

  Minerva Crimson, or someone Mana assumed to be Minerva Crimson, smiled down at her, gently running her fingers through her hair. She wore a helmet on her hair, rather than her head, and she looked like a roman goddess should, draped in a cloak and everything else, though maybe showing a little too much skin – or too little, depending on which depictions of gods were being consulted.

  “Welcome back, Mana. Are you feeling better?”

  Mana nodded, then she looked around. She was in an apartment in Tokyo, apparently. The TV was still running, showing recordings of the Celestial Sisters, the Flower Brigade and the Kuma Group fighting shades and rescuing people from bubbles, as well as Mana herself. It embarrassed her a little bit to be observed like that. Then the footage changed and showed Minerva Crimson and Bellona Azure arriving. Both had different forms than usual, with Minerva looking like a Roman or Greek goddess while Bellona was clad in futuristic looking armor, commanding glowing swords to sweep through the streets and annihilate any dream shades with laser beams.

  “What happened?” Mana asked now.

  “What happened is that I’m forever in your debt, young Mana,” Minerva replied, then she squeezed her in a tight hug; the young cat-eared witch could only let out an undignified squeak in response.

  “Thank you… for protecting Ayame.”

  Mana blushed and buried her face in Minerva’s chest.

  “Miss Takanashi saved me. She transformed into a Magical Girl and fought the Dream Empress…”

  “Right, that,” Minerva said and let out a sigh. With a bright flash of light, she undid her transformation and sat on the couch as Seika Hitoishi, who still caressed Mana’s hair in a motherly gesture.

  “The Dream Empress withdrew,” she commented and gestured towards the TV where the reporters recounted the events of the evening.

  “In an absurd spectacle, both Magical Girls and marionettes of the elusive ‘Madame Bille’ clashed with the dream shades. Minerva Crimson and Bellona Azure confronted the mastermind behind the recent incursion, forcing her into a hasty retreat. Afterwards the marionettes retreated as well, after announcing that ‘Madame Bille will not suffer other conquerors’.”

  Mana raised a brow at that announcement, looking to Miss Hitoishi, who only shrugged her shoulders.

  “She has to keep up appearances.”

  “Right…”

  Mana only half-heartedly listened to the TV. Apparently, US bombers were already on the way towards Tokyo to prevent the spread of the Dream Empresses’ shades across the country and the world, only aborting after the situation was resolved. Imagining that situation made her gall rise to the back of her throat.

  “Ahh, there’s my hero!” the familiar voice of Miss Takanashi spoke from behind, who immediately went for a hug, too. Mana was squeezed from multiple sides, letting out quiet sounds of protest.

  “Stop it! I’m so embarrassed by how she just… beat me up. I’m a witch! She shouldn’t have ever touched me!” Mana complained but got her ears ruffled instead of her complaints validated.

  Miss Takeuchi stepped into the room as well and looked around between her guests, exchanging a look with Miss Hitoishi, who nodded.

  “You probably want to go home and get some rest now, don’t you, Mana?”

  Mana raised an eyebrow; she did want to rest, either at home or at her ‘sister’s place, but she clearly understood the true meaning behind Miss Hitoishi’s words.

  ‘We need a moment alone.’

  “Sure!” she said with a little grin and hopped off the couch, stretching. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  Mana gestured and opened a portal into her infinite library, giving the trio the space they needed.

  However…

  “Mana, what are you doing?” Portal asked and she immediately shushed him. Her portal persisted, hovering impossibly small in the air, leaving only a needlepoint-sized hole in reality to connect to Miss Hitoishi’s apartment. Her cat ears twitched as she tilted her head so that she could listen better. Miss Hitoishi was speaking.

  “Ayame, Miori and I have been talking, and…”

  There was a little break before two voices spoke in unison.

  ““Will you marry us?””

  Mana immediately stepped away from her microscopic portal and closed it, leaning against a nearby bookshelf and smiling to herself.

  Arisu… it’s not long now until you’re born, is it?

  ***

  Month 2, Year 1 of Chief Technocrat Meryl’s Rule

  ***

  “Ah, Mana. Welcome! You look tired, is everything alright?”

  Mana gave Filo, the new employee, a tired, but genuine smile. The pink-haired woman was a social butterfly and Mana quickly warmed up to her within a few days of them meeting.

  Mana approached and had a look at the monitors showing every angle of the artificial Tokyo – every angle except a few cameras inside Marisa’s house.

  “…he really removed them?” she asked in awe.

  “He did. Now that Meryl has been promoted to Chief Technocrat, she’s not involved with the day-to-day operations here anymore, and Stevyn, as the new director, allowed us to remove the cameras in the bath, toilet and bedroom.”

  I could go and take a bath with her… Mana blinked and shook off her thought before giving Filo and awkward smile.

  “Thank you.”

  “No need to thank me, that was all Stevyn’s doing!” Filo announced, throwing her arms wide.

  “Where is he anyway?” Mana asked with some interest, watching Marisa going home from school on the monitors.

  “Taking Claudia out on a date,” Filo announced and grinned as she saw Mana’s reaction.

  “Wait, they are…?”

  “Since yesterday, apparently. I guess some sparks were flying between them,” Filo replied with a little wink.

  “…I never saw anything like that between them. He was more like… taking care of her because she’s the newbie?” Mana mused, but then she shrugged.

  “Love can come fast or slow, young witch!” Filo announced with a happy little giggle, and Mana shrugged.

  “Anyway, I’m off to see my ‘sister’.”

  Her ’sister’ came today. Mana was over the moon, but Marisa appeared a little worn down. Her blue hair fell over her face as she kept nodding off, resting her head on Mana’s lap as her tail gently brushed against her side. Mana sneakily coiled her own red tail around Marisa’s blue one.

  “Hard day?” Mana asked nonchalantly.

  “Mhm…”

  “I guess you’ll just want to rest up, then.”

  “Yup,” Marisa mumbled from her lap.

  “Should I get the bath ready for you?”

  “Sure…”

  Mana sighed and gently put a pillow in place of her lap before she got up and walked towards the bath. She turned on the active heating and filled the tub, watching the water level rise.

  Right, the water…

  She waited until the tub was full, then she turned off the water and went up to her room to retrieve the bottle. She turned it in her hand a few times, taking deep breaths.

  “…not today. She looks like she had a bad day,” she mumbled, putting the bottle back. Today she would simply pamper her sister and scrub her back before taking a bath together. Love and the truth that they weren’t sisters could wait just a little longer…