Glory of the Sun Patron, 6310

  ***

  It had been days since she last saw light. She was hanging in a black cell, with her hands chained above her head. She had to be fed by the prison wardens, and cleaned by them as well, if they bothered to do so.

  Her body ached all over; not just from the beating the High Enchantresses’ minions gave her upon her arrival, but also the magical attacks from Minerva Crimson that hit her.

  The day Maria found out that the Magical Girls she believed to have killed survived her attack, they made an appearance in new, stronger forms and forced her to run, right after her ex-girlfriend borrowed a Magical Girl form in a laughable display of defiance.

  Still, this ‘laughable’ show resulted in the gash Maria wore across her face now. Of course, the High Enchantress didn’t waste a healer on a prisoner, so they left that wound. It would scar, Maria realized and once more rage filled her entire being.

  Her brooding thoughts were interrupted by the cell’s door swinging open, allowing light to fall on Maria. It was painful after the few days of absence, and she had to squint to make out who was standing in the door. It was Taenya.

  “Did you come to slit my throat?” Maria asked with a tired grin and the elf narrowed her eyes.

  “Don’t try to get out of your punishment! You caused a scene, way in advance of our invasion. Do you have any idea how much grief you caused the mistress? Her hair has started to turn silver from all the stress she experiences from having to replan the entire thing!”

  Maria scoffed. “Well, boo-hoo. Helping you has always been secondary to my true objective of getting revenge.”

  “And you failed at it both times,” Taenya commented, crossing her arms.

  “So, what are we doing about me, then, darling?” Maria asked with venom in her voice despite the pet name, and Taenya reacted promptly by stepping closer to her and drawing a knife, which was instantly pushed against Maria’s throat.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Oh? You liked it when we were training together, or rather, the nights afterward,” Maria responded with a grin. The prompt reaction to her words was the blade nicking her skin.

  “And that was a mistake that I won’t repeat. Don’t think you’re my equal because you were used as a distraction once.”

  “I just think I can provoke you into ending this quicker.”

  Taenya’s face distorted with rage and she stepped back, putting the dagger away.

  “No chance. We will still make use of you. Your abilities have their uses, and only after you help us, will we release you fully. Whether that’s with my knife in your throat or a kick to your behind depends entirely on you.”

  “Charming,” Maria confirmed with a grunt, then a second person stepped into the cell. White, glowing hair on top of a thin body identified her as the ‘emissary’ who truly called the shots here. Still, Maria had her suspicions about this one.

  “More people. Turning this into a party, hm?”

  The emissary stepped closer and painfully grabbed Maria’s hair as she looked her in the eyes with gritted teeth.

  “You useless waste of flesh!” she hissed, and Maria narrowed her eyes.

  “We gave you everything! We prepared you for this one task for so long, and still you fail!” she shouted. Maria bared her teeth now and gave her own answer in a low growl.

  “You didn’t do anything! You gave me a scythe and transformed my body and nothing else! I stabbed the red one in the heart! She should be dead! I dropped the blonde one off a building and would have killed her if Jupiter himself didn’t show up! And I wasn’t the one who alerted him, was I?”

  The emissary hissed and let go of her hair.

  “Count yourself lucky that you might still have some use as a distraction,” she said, walking towards the door.

  “And why should I help you to begin with?”

  The emissary turned around and looked at her with narrowed eyes, then she grinned and stepped closer again. She produced Maria’s mask from a pouch she was carrying, caressing its edges with her fingers.

  “You won’t have a choice.”

  She turned the mask, and Maria’s eyes widened in horror as she saw a purple needle sitting on the inside, right between and above the eyes.

  “No! No, anything but that! Just kill me! I will not be a puppet! Not again!!”

  She strained against her chains and kicked to keep the emissary away from her. The woman simply stood out of range and quietly mocked her with her gaze.

  “Right! You were your father’s property, weren’t you? Less than human, only existing to carry on his will. And you know, I think I might just hate you enough that I am going to reveal to you why things turned out that way, before I turn you into a mindless drone.”

  She stepped closer, catching one of Maria’s legs mid-kick and gripping it like a vise. Maria could feel the power draining from her leg, and soon after, her body, as the emissary used her uncanny powers to drain the very life force from her victim.

  “Your father didn’t always shun your dream, did he? You were his darling daughter, up until seventeen years ago.”

  The emissary stepped closer and caressed Maria’s face, making intense eye contact.

  “He loved his wife, he loved his daughter. But then he lost the former in an accident, and soon after he became so obsessed with needing an heir for his little empire that he beat your aspirations of becoming an actress out of you. Sometimes quite… literally, if I remember correctly.”

  Maria’s lips trembled. She tried to pull on her chains again, but she felt weak, like she was malnourished. The emissary continued.

  “You never wondered why he changed so suddenly? Of course, one could assume that the tragic, traumatizing loss of his beloved wife was all there was to it, but the truth is: it was a team effort. My uncles, cousin and I worked oh so tirelessly. First, Senectus accelerated his aging, then I drained his life little by little, Fatum showed him a vision of his untimely death, and Morpheus… oh, Morpheus was the true artist. He let him dream of his dead wife over and over, and had you be there… killing her and laughing, standing above her corpse.”

  “Why…?” Only a weak whisper was able to leave her lips, but Maria wanted to shout. To scream, to demand explanations from the emissary. Why did they do this? Why her of all people? What was the point of that cruelty? The emissary gave her the answer with a dismissive wave.

  “We needed him to raise a resentful woman, someone fit to wield the power of dreams in a destructive fashion. One whose own dream was destroyed, so she would try to make the whole world suffer. An unwitting assassin, who would be at odds with the self-righteous future host of Minerva.”

  Maria’s entire body trembled, but at this point she was too weak to even offer resistance as her Dream Empress mask was slowly put on her face.

  Her mind was swimming in the possibilities of what she could have become without the involvement of these cruel gods. A young woman, standing on stage, performing classical theater. A woman walking the red carpet after a long career of starring first in Japanese movies, then in Hollywood.

  There was an infinite world of little Marias, growing up into all sorts of women in the dreamy world of acting. But as the poisoned needle pricked her skin, all those dreams were blown away, like grains of sand in the wind.

  Now, she was nothing.

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

  ***

  Mana entered the observation room through one of her portals. Claudia was here to greet her today, and she gave her a little wave and smile.

  “Here to see Marisa?”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “I was at a wedding and kind of feel like being hugged by her,” Mana admitted sheepishly.

  “Well, as long as you don’t try to marry her in there as well, you’re good to go. You know what Meryl said.”

  Mana let out a deep sigh and nodded, smiling at Clara. “Of course. I’ll behave, don’t worry.”

  ***

  Mana opened the door to ‘her’ house after coming out of one of the many hidden entrances inside the containment facility. The actors for her parents weren’t in today, usually explained by them going on an outing, or being kept away due to work-related issues. Marisa didn’t appear to mind, either way. Mana ascended the stairs from the living room and knocked on the door of Marisa’s bedroom. She heard her ‘sister’ jumping off her bed and hurry towards the door on the other side, and surely enough, she hurriedly opened the door and hugged Mana in a jump.

  “Sis! Welcome!” she said, and Mana gently patted her head.

  “Hello. It’s been a few days, hasn’t it?” she asked, smiling as Marisa led her inside and made her sit down at the low table in her room.

  “You look better than last time. Did something good happen?”

  Mana smiled and looked Marisa in the eyes.

  “I went to a wedding. As a guest,” she quickly added the last bit. Marisa’s face lit up with joy, but there was something strange in her expression. A yearning, almost. Mana blinked and it was gone, so she stopped worrying about it.

  “I’m going to get us some tea. You want some?” Marisa asked as she got up.

  “Uhm… sure, of course!” Mana replied with a smile. Marisa nodded and walked to the door, picking up a water bottle that stood on her shelf next to it.

  “I’ll be right back!” she announced. Mana nodded and stared at the ceiling. Arisu must have been born by now, so it was strange to her that Marisa was fine. She wasn’t unhappy about it, but it felt like something was missing. How could Arisu exist while her soul was still present and fine in Marisa’s body? Was time travel destined to get involved somehow?

  Her thoughts were interrupted as Marisa came back with two glasses of barley tea. She put a glass in front of Mana, then in front of her own pillow before she sat back down. They quietly enjoyed a few deep gulps before Mana spoke up again.

  “How has school been?”

  “Boring, but I manage,” Marisa answered, and her silver eyes were shifting around a little.

  She’s behaving odd today… well, whatever.

  Mana took another gulp of the barley tea, but as she made eye contact with Marisa again, something was weird.

  Marisa appeared strangely attractive. More than usual, anyway. Mana was already in love with her and sought intimacy with her before, but right now it was like all of that bottled-up desire which she couldn’t express this past year came rushing back and took complete control of her mind.

  “Sis? Are you alright?” she heard Marisa ask while she held a hand in front of her eyes, trying to suppress that strange, sweltering feeling. She felt hot, like she was about to burst.

  Some relief came as Marisa suddenly hugged her close, pushing her lips on Mana’s. Her mind screamed for her to stop, but her body continued and she sank into the feeling, not even realizing that Marisa had toppled her and pushed her to the ground. Mana only managed to speak weakly once Marisa separated from her.

  “We… no, we shouldn’t… we…”

  “We’re not really sisters,” Marisa spoke, and the words shook Mana to her core.

  How?! How does she know? I need to let Claudia know to use the Alter Memory spell again… I need to…

  Her thoughts were rudely interrupted by another kiss. This time it was shorter and sweeter than the last.

  “We’re not,” Mana replied dryly, staring at the ceiling, and Marisa caressed her cheek.

  “I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long… I was always held back by my feelings of guilt that sisters shouldn’t do it. I spoke to my therapist, Doctor Grendel, about it and he said it’s okay if I don’t act on it. But it was never true! I could have done this all along!”

  Marisa’s eyes were filled with tears, and Mana looked into them, placing a hand on her unfortunate clone’s. She knew that what she was about to do was the wrong thing. She wasn’t supposed to ‘stimulate’ Marisa too much. She was supposed to refrain from acting like they used to, to avoid her regaining her old memories.

  But here, alone with Marisa, in a strange state of love-drunken arousal and emboldened by the fact that Stevyn removed the cameras… she indulged in her mistake.

  September 2025

  ***

  Arisu woke up and found herself squished between two women. Her mamas, as she realized after having a quick look from left to right; the third one, however, apparently already left the bed. She furrowed her brow and tried to remember how she got into this situation: last night she had a strange nightmare of an endless white void filled with marbles that she was trapped inside of alone for an incredibly long time, so she got out of her bed and craved the comfort of having someone else next to her as a reminder that she wasn’t alone. Of course, her mamas let her join them in the bed, and she liked the warmth radiating from both sides, but she was afraid that she was bothering them.

  She sighed and stared ahead, furrowing her brow as she was face-to-face with a photograph of Mama Minerva, naked with her arms covering any sensitive bits. She knew that her mamas were a little odd, but she didn’t have details about what led to this particular photo.

  “Mh… awake already, Arisu?” Mama Miori yawned, grabbing her phone from the side of the table and checking the time.

  “…the alarm isn’t for another twenty minutes…”

  “I’m sorry, mama. Did I wake you up?”

  Mama Miori yawned and stretched, reaching out a hand to pat Arisu’s head.

  “It’s fine. I’ll just sleep a little more later before I go to work,” she said before she slowly sat up, stretched again, and then walked out of the bedroom. Arisu looked towards Mama Seika on the other side and leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek before getting up as well. Mama Seika let out a low, grumbling noise and turned a little, wrapping herself entirely in her blanket in the process.

  Arisu walked towards the bath and saw Mama Miori stand in the kitchen, humming as she prepared breakfast, heating up a pan while the rice cooker behind her was already at work. Arisu walked past her into the washroom, where Mama Ayame was already brushing her teeth in front of the mirror. She groggily looked at her own reflection until she noticed Arisu, then she shuffled to the side to make space for her daughter. Her mama was beautiful, with long, brown hair flowing over her shoulders and a single red streak running along the left edge of her face.

  “Good morning, mama,” Arisu said as she took her place next to Mama Ayame.

  “Mhnngnn,” was the reply.

  They kept brushing while they stood next to each other without exchanging a word, though halfway through, Mama Ayame reached out her hand and patted Arisu’s head, while a smile appeared on her sleepy face.

  They spent the rest of their brushing like that until they left the washroom and took their place around the dining table. Mama Miori had already prepared breakfast for them. A piece of mackerel, various veggies, miso soup and a bowl of rice.

  “Come on, dig in,” Mama Miori said with a smile.

  “Hmm, is Seika still sleeping?” Mama Ayame asked with a glance towards the bedroom door.

  “She’s getting as much sleep as she can. Old habits die hard.”

  “Well, I hope she’ll be up to see Arisu off.”

  Arisu simply ate, looking around between her two mamas. Mama Ayame was a fully regular human, as far as she could tell, while Mama Miori shared a symbiotic relationship with Mama Bellona. Arisu stared at her with her crystal eye for a little longer and could see the magical aura of her Mama Bellona surrounding Miori.

  As they were halfway done with breakfast, the door to the bedroom opened and Mama Seika walked in with a long yawn. She looked at the set table and a smile crept on her face. She walked towards Arisu to take the seat next to her, quickly hugging Arisu and giving her a kiss on the forehead.

  “Good morning, Arisu. Good morning, Miori, Ayame…”

  She sat down and clapped her hands together in thanks for the meal before she dug in.

  “Today’s your first day at school. Are you nervous, Arisu?” Mama Seika asked after devouring her mackerel with rather unladylike hunger.

  “A little,” Arisu confirmed with a nod and then blinked as Mama Miori gently put on her eyepatch from behind, hiding her crystal eye.

  “Just remember: don’t show anyone your eye. If people ask about it, tell them it was a birth defect and you shouldn’t take the eyepatch off,” Mama Miori spoke to her before she went back to the kitchen to prepare a bento.

  Arisu watched her while thinking about the last month. Her mamas looked a little stressed as they worked out plans to make sure that Arisu’s real identity as a Deogemma hybrid would stay hidden, and Mama Miori in particular had a lot of strange paperwork that she needed to fill out.

  They even took samples from Arisu’s mouth with cotton swabs, and Mama Miori looked relieved, but also a little confused as the test came back with Arisu being confirmed as her and Mama Seika’s biological daughter.

  She heard them talk about what that meant, and what part Mama Minerva and Mama Bellona played, but ultimately they accepted it as it was.

  Right now that mattered little, as Mama Miori handed Arisu her bento and she immediately stowed it in her bag.

  ***

  After breakfast was done, Arisu put on her shoes in the entryway. She was dressed in her school uniform, a sailor outfit with a big ribbon on the back worn over a grey dress and white shirt. The yellow stripes marked her as a third grader in junior high school, and today she would join a class as a transfer student.

  “If there’s any problems, go and talk to Mana,” Mama Seika told her, and Arisu turned around.

  “You won’t have a problem finding her, she has blue hair, cat ears and a tail, too.”

  Arisu nodded and a little mischievous smirk managed to sneak on her features. Today she was finally going out there on her own! She would go to school and then maybe explore a little… the possibilities were endless, and she almost shook with excitement.

  She raised a hand and waved goodbye to her five mamas.

  “I’ll be off!”

  “Have a safe trip!” she heard in response from Mamas Seika, Miori and Ayame, and she knew that Minerva and Bellona wished it for her, as well. With that, she stepped outside.

  ***

  The journey to school was a short trip towards the local train station to travel to Shibuya and from there to the all-girls school her mamas signed her up for. According to them, the only reason they did that was because it was a mixed junior- and senior high school, attended by this ‘Mana’, who Mama Seika told her about, since she could be relied on for Arisu to find her way through school if necessary.

  This trip would be ordinary enough for any other person: get into the train car, ride a few stations, change trains at a station and then get out at Shibuya station to walk a few minutes towards her school, but for Arisu, it was a strange adventure full of unknown sights.

  Not just Earth, with its concrete buildings, metallic cars and planes in the sky, but the visitors, as well.

  Even behind the eyepatch, Arisu’s eye took note of strange, otherworldly presences around her. A man in a business suit was on the way to work, but the aura around him told Arisu that he was a traveler from another world entirely, pretending to be a local to sightsee. She could find out more if she stepped closer, like his world of origin or what kind of person or creature he was, but he seemed harmless enough, so she left him alone. She passed by three girls in middle school uniforms, each of them wearing flower pins on their uniforms which emitted magical energies as well; the Flower Brigade, Arisu realized, and their patron was a benevolent goddess-like woman from another world, not dissimilar to Flora from her own. Arisu made a mental note to talk to them one day; maybe she would be able to find out why she was at odds with Auntie Nicola.

  All of these strange auras, people from other worlds, benevolent patrons or malevolent actors. Arisu saw them all.

  And she would protect this world from those who wanted to harm it… once she learned to harness her powers.

  (Volume 5 End)