Nyxia's words made Evil Eye chuckle. "Who's this, then? You know her?" she asked Nyxia. Then, she looked at Sink Queen again. "I might be a bit more inclined to let you have her, if your intentions were less cryptic," she replied, skeptical but not outright hostile, yet. She didn't really move to stop her, either. Perhaps she just wanted something to say to the token light girl of their group.

---

It was an effort just to remain standing, pupils twitching with the strain she couldn't afford to project. Not with the club so gathered in the wake of a stunning victory, and most certainly not with Michi still before them. She'd exercised a sliver of her wrath upon the Giga Miseria, and with no outlet in sight she swallowed it down with the same grit she ignored her raw feet or the shrieking pain of pulverized bone.

Earthshaker would have loved to have dropped her transformation and put all that behind her, had a face she'd rather not encounter with such a large audience. There was a lack of hostility seeing Sink Queen from those around her, and most even found it agreeable for Michi to be taken off their hands without a fuss.

Because why would they when no one else knows she's with Regina? And if they have Black Gate, she has our ever insecurity and fear in her head. Regina could talk her into joining up against us no problem. There was no doubt in Roche's mind that this was an existential threat to all of them, possibly even worse then what the GEMS posed with their willingness to attack them amidst their personal lives.

A long Michi, operating on her own, pulled the entire club and the school into her dream play. She was even strong enough to supposedly drag Sink Queen into it as well Which meant-

She's just as much a threat to Regina as she is to us. The Rulekeeper's thoughts snapped into place with a sudden clarity, and her body responded in kind. There was only one path forward, and it was to make the best of a bad decision.

"You're right, it's for the best." The Rulekeeper's lips twinged without mirth, stooping down and swallowing the discomfort that came from lifting the curled up Black Gate up in a bridal carry before offering her to the aquatic Magical Girl.

And in so doing, came close enough to go unheard by those watching. "She owes us for this. We need to talk."

---

Everything after Suika's output reached its peak was a blur to her. In what seemed like a blink she found herself lying on the ground, having been lowered down by Hizuki's thrusters and Oros' quick thinking.

"... dealing with brats like this is something I’m suited to dealing with."

Huh? Who was that?

“That’s fine by me, I’d be happy if I never saw that bitch again for the rest of my life.”

What? Did Nyxia even know about Black Gate? Was she in the dream?

Acid Drop's head was spinning.

"You're right, it's for the best."

Says who?

As Acid Drop's eyes finally started sending their signals to her brain again, she saw Earthshaker handing Black Gate to... some squid lady? She looked familiar, somehow.

Without meaning to stand up, Acid Drop found herself on her feet.

Without meaning to, she found herself using the last spark of energy she had.

Without meaning to, she realized that she had a hand on Michi's shoulder, trying to keep her and Roche behind her and away from the unknown Magical Girl. Whatever was driving her, she didn't care. Something was wrong here.

Did nobody learn anything from the dream?

"No, she-" That was all she could say. In an instant, her hand fell like the rest of her as she landed face-first onto the concrete, completely unconscious.

The last thing that Acid Drop heard was the sound of clapping.

While Oros was apprehensive about handing off Black Gate to a stranger, Nyxia was not. Evil Eye seemed to share Oros’s level of concern, but ultimately wasn’t any more active than her in trying to get the aquatic magical girl to back off. "Aww, do you care about her?" Sink Queen teased Evil Eye. "I’m not going to kill her, if that’s what you’re concerned about. In fact, you may even see her again." It seemed like it was going to come down to the rule keeper to make a final decision, which was to give Sink Queen exactly what she wanted. Though as soon as this final decision came down, Acid Drop surged forward, started to talk, and promptly collapsed. Oros sprinted forward, but she wasn’t fast enough to stop Acid Drop from face planting. "How curious…"

Once Black Gate was in her arms, Earthshaker made a request. This caused her to raise an eyebrow. "She? Who’s she?" Unlike Roche, Sink Queen wasn’t so quiet. Earthshaker must have been making a face, because Sink Queen’s look of faux bewilderment gave way to a large smile. "I’m the one you saved, and I’m not entirely convinced I couldn’t have done it myself." The smile ran from her face "Don’t mistake my gratitude for weakness, mate. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve finally paid me back for the lesson on giga miseria. Lot of good it did you. It’s been nearly half a year and you still look knackered after fighting them in the day." Her smile returned. "Fortunately, I’m interested in keeping you in debt to me."

Sink Queen slung Black gate over her shoulder, and her tentacle coiled around both of their torsos. It almost looked like Black Gate was being carried around in a backpack. "Dark magical girls get stronger when they kill miseria, right? It is that simple most of the time, but not for you. Not when you have someone as powerful as Schrade on your side." She placed a hand on her hip. "Because a miseria doesn’t really care who killed it. It’s absorbed through your powers, but it will always be drawn to the strongest power if it’s close enough. Even when you slay a giga miseria and saturate the area in ambient negative emotions, the strongest dark magical girl will absorb most of it. Which is why even I got stronger when you slew that thing, despite my lack of a contribution." As if to demonstrate, she flexed her other arm. "Not much mind you, as I was untransformed at the time. But when you’re as strong as Schrade is, well, even if you watch over a fight untransformed you’re probably going to inherit all the power." She hopped backwards. "If you want to get stronger lads, you’re going to have to get out from under your boss. Fighting something far outside of Hibusa town would be ideal."

Her eyes pivoted to the side. A giant ball of fire that looked suspiciously similar to Ashbringer blazed its way towards Sink Queen’s position. It even moved as fast as she did (or Schrade).

Sink Queen barely had time to do anything before the ball of fire rolled over her. For those that didn’t blink, they could briefly catch a glimpse of a cyborg draconic magical girl inside the flaming sphere. She caughtSink Queen with her shoulder, and then the next moment the ball of fire shot into the air and soared out of town. The only sign it had even been here was a scorch mark that charred all the grass in the distance that lead to Sink Queen’s position.

From the direction the fireball came were two figures. One was a cat girl with a violin, chattering away while being far out of earshot. And beside her was a familiar green haired girl.



Their pace was casual, but it did not take them long to walk into the middle of the school’s debris. Initially, their leader seemed displeased. She ran her hand along a concrete pillar, which used to be standing upright and may have held the ceiling of their club room up. But as she got closer to the group, she shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

"Interesting development, isn’t it?"

The red-black magical girl's eye twitched at the accusation of caring for her enemy, but otherwise, she remained quiet and lent the aquatic girl an ear. So, she was the one who'd told the other Club girls about giga miseria during her absence, while she had learned of their existence on her own. Incidentally, Evil Eye was also the only Club member who'd gained an entirely new ability since joining it—after taking part in the felling of a giga miseria herself, outside of Hibusa town. It was enough of a coincidence that she couldn't just brush off Sink Queen's newest lesson as yet more poisoned words meant to divide them against each other. "Interesting. Well, enjoy your babysitting." Neither her face nor the tone of her voice gave away anything.

She turned around to face the approaching Rei just in time to catch sight of a couple of paramedics lifting Haruna into an ambulance. Just before they could shut the doors, she plucked a tear from her eye and threw it into the ambulance after them. "Right," she replied dryly. "If Ashbringer's still adopting new members, even I might have to start taking my training seriously." She made no attempt to sound fired up about it at all. It was as if she wasn't even taking her own words seriously. Her mind was entirely elsewhere, calculating a completely different equation from the one being presented. "Text me when you have a new meeting place picked out. Just don't make it a corporate office. If you give me a fucking cubicle, I quit." With that, she picked a random direction and flew away.

She did her best thinking alone, after all.

The maddening cackles of Miseria continued to fill Hotaru’s ears while the fight went on. Forced to witness the disciple’s agile moves that would have given away her presence to anyone who paid even the barest amount of attention to her, the warrior let out a frustrated groan. Why was it always that she could not do anything in the most important moments? Why was it that people hated her for reasons she did not even control? It was not her fault if Sylvia was a scaredy cat! It was not her fault that Ember was being a bitch! Not even refusing to work with her helped!

She grit her teeth. Pounded the floor with a fist as hard as she could. The hand barely raised up into the air before it hit the ground again, leaving behind no impact at all. If only she could swap into a different body like the old times…

Hotaru grit her teeth. She wanted to scream. Pressure kept building inside of her, superheated steam assailing the thin walls of a tin boiler. Her head, too, felt as though it had been locked into a vice as she considered what she could do to get out of this, but only one solution presented itself: apologise to Ember. Ask for the schemer’s help. Lower herself to meet them halfway or she would not be able to live her life.

The warrior hated that the schemer won in the end.

Steam punched a hole in the metaphorical boiler’s side, escaping with a pained-furious hiss through Hotaru’s mouth. The cracking of concrete, the creaking of walls and the crumbling of the ceiling provided the percussion to her wind instruments, composing a beautiful finale for this body of hers before she retreated fully into their shared space and abandoned it just in time for the Miseria to take interest in it. No doubt the scene would turn into fuel for another one of Hibusa’s strange rumors.

Having resigned herself to not interfere with… Wait a second. She could feel the presence of Ember and Sylvia in a distant corner. Her senses were not exactly the sharpest amongst the three of them, but even she could tell the schemer remained focused on the protector. So, who was fighting out there?

It could not be Chiaki. They had ensured she would remain asleep, sheltered from the real world until they could figure out how they could protect her from all the evils rearing their ugly head. As if to make matters worse, Hotaru knew the fighting style of Chiaki well and the one outside did not move like the Hiramatsu family’s child at all. They had been far too graceful, far too precise based on what she could see. It was almost as though the warrior herself was at the helm, but cared more about the body than she usually did.

Normally, she would have ran straight to Ember. Yet she dismissed the thought immediately. Not only could she not trust the schemer, if she interrupted now, it would be Sylvia paying the price tenfold. The way those lines showed up in the dream-

Hotaru shivered. Her entire body felt as though she had dunked ice water on it. Because that one was her fault. Had she been stronger, faster or more decisive, Sylvia would not have had to suffer like that. She would not have…

Once again, she could do nothing, save for watching it unfold from afar.

…

…

What if that was exactly what she needed to do?

Ember kept her cards close to her chests. But not even she was invulnerable. Not even her schemes were infallible. And if the warrior could find a weakness to exploit, or even something to learn, then she could overcome even the schemer. She still needed to figure out if she was wrong with Sylvia. That would be a visit to Kiyo just in case. No matter what, Hotaru thought she glimpsed the key to her freedom.

---

Misera, big and small, swarmed the disciple, who did everything she could to avoid their blows. She served more as a target than an actual force for her opponents, at least in the beginning until Nyxia started to thin them out, giving the disciple more room to move, which in turn had her go on the offensive. It was exactly what they needed to turn the tide; with the focus of their relatively small opponents being split and the Giga Misera seemingly weaker than before, it would be only a matter of time before they won.

Time, which they may not have.

She caught a glimpse of the massive, pitch black sphere in the sky. A huge mech - Hizuki - held its ground against it, barely so. The fight looked even, but she did not have much time to spare before she had to concentrate on the fight, only for the Giga Miseria to fall thanks to their combined efforts. And yet, it was still too late to help one of their comrades.

Her heart sunk as she both felt and saw the unleashed light, muttering a silent prayer beneath her breath as Kiyo caught her - then she was gone from this body. The sharp Evil Eye would surely catch on no matter what she did and it was better for everyone if no one knew about her for now.

---

As much as she hated to admit it, there was nothing more Ember could do. Despite all her efforts, she only managed to thin the lines and make Sylvia look as though she would not be shattering into thousands of pieces the moment someone blew on her. Now they had to actually take a lungful of air before the resulting “tempest” would sweep the protector away.

The conclusion was obvious: Takae Shuuko’s, Shatterscape’s magic was of no use here, at least not in the form Ember wielded it. She had to broaden her horizons, but trusting someone with this level of vulnerability… The only one she could think of from the top of her head was Earthshaker. She had been growing closer and closer to Sylvia lately.

It might work out well.

No, it had to work out well. If it didn’t….

She dared not to think about it. She did not even want to glance in its general direction.

A gentle rain tapped soothingly on the window of Kiyo's bedroom. Water trickled outside her darkened apartment like a Siren's lullaby, mocking her inability to sleep. Instead of climbing into her bed, she sat back down at her desk. A can of Feral Energy clunked down defiantly next to her laptop. A half-lidded pair of eyes gazed back at her from the black mirror. If the screen was off, she knew she'd taken too long of a break. "It's too early to be looking like that. Three... no, four more days, and it'll be finished," she assured herself. The web pages she'd visited during Michi's nightmare hadn't existed, but the breakthroughs were real, and she could recall much of the information. That was the singular positive thing she could take away from it. Everything else... she didn't want to think about it. She hadn't slept the previous night, and she wasn't likely to sleep tonight, either, unless she dropped from sheer exhaustion. She wiggled her mouse to turn the screen back on. The sudden light was blinding, even with all of her applications in dark mode, like a sensible person. While her eyes adjusted to it, she decided to check on Haruna again. Because I haven't been doing that enough times, she thought to herself with a weary huff.

. . .

Something stirred in the darkness of the light girl's peripheral vision. There was a tall, black shadow, and two small, bright red, glowing eyes. After a moment of staring in stunned silence, the eyes narrowed and dropped down suddenly, as if the shadow that was sitting in that chair had sunk through the floor like a ghost—but the skittering noise that followed was proof that it hadn't. It was still in the room with her.

A moment passed.

Then, there was a sudden pressure on the bed.

Slowly, a black blob moved closer to Haruna's face.

. . .

"Eeaaarrrwww."

It let out a drawling cry. ...A cat?

Yes, it was a black cat, with fluffy fur, soft as silk. It both looked and sounded a little tired, like a grumpy, older cat.

On the bedside table, just within reach, Haruna's phone vibrated. It was a text from Kiyo.

Wakey wakey.

Sleep well?

Haruna blinked a few times, dispelling both the haze of being halfway between sleep and wakefulness and the brief concern that a miseria had wormed its way into the hospital room with her. She blinked again when her phone went off, prompting her to rub at her eyes before reaching for the device with one hand. Her other idly moved to pet the cat, a motion that didn’t cease once she read the letters on the screen.

"Oh. That makes sense.” Haruna shook the last of the cobwebs out of her head, or tried to at least, then squinted at the upper right of the screen.

better than you, probably, her fingers tapped out. i’ve been out for a while i think. She glanced out the window, into the nothingness the time and the rain presented her with. are you ok?

The cat performed a typical 'petting ritual.' It shrunk back from Haruna's hand, sniffed, then seemed to decide that it would allow this human to display her affection. It yawned lazily, crouched down into a loaf at Haruna's side and purred, appeased.

. . .

Kiyo typed for a while, then stopped, as if Haruna's subsequent question had caught her off guard.

Then, the texts came hard and fast.

Only about a day and a half, sleepyhead.

Everyone survived, thanks to you.

Well, my team evacuated the cafeteria, so we did it together.

...That was sappier than I intended.

Anyway,

You haven't missed much.

The school is still deciding what to do about the situation.

I knew you wouldn't rest properly unless you knew everyone was okay.

So, I dropped off your phone for you.

Also, I tried making a cat. Is she cute?

A cat's purr has healing properties, you know.

The next text took a little more typing.

What about you? Besides being tired, how do you feel?

worried was the immediate response. It took a few moments for her to continue.

that means i missed a patrol. but also, relieved. and

The text cut there. A long pause ensued.

a lot of other feelings. A shorter pause. the cat is very cute yeah. i like cats.

Worried. Of course she would be. Kiyo exhaled, a wry smile on the corner of her lip.

Everyone is stronger now. Missing a couple of patrols isn't a big deal. We're holding the fort.

She was telling her to take another day off.

I won't keep you up any longer. Get some rest.
You did good, Haruna. Take some time off, you need it.
You did everything we could've asked for. You deserve a day off.

Kiyo typed for a while, but didn't send her last text, whatever it might have been.

Her finger hovered over the send button, unsatisfied. The text about cats tempted her to change the subject, to dodge uncomfortable questions like she always did. On the laptop screen in front of her, long lines of code stretched ever onward, like this moment in time seemed to, mocking her indecisiveness. "A lot of other feelings." She kept staring at those words, hoping she could determine what that meant without asking for more. Hoping she could find some feeling in her heart that would let her relate in any truly useful way, without requiring more keywords from Haruna, like a goddamn robot.

I know what you mean.

Another unsent text. She was out of her chair now, pacing around the room.

Finally, she hit the call button.

Just hear her out. Don't be greedy, she counseled herself, exhaling slowly.

It didn’t take long for Haruna to pick up. ”Hello?” Confusion came through in her voice, what with the long delay and Kiyo seemingly angling to end the conversation. She continued to idly stroke the cat, despite - or, perhaps, because of - knowing it was just a construct created by the dark girl she was speaking with. ”Is something up?” Concern, again.

Kiyo let go of a breath she didn't know she was holding. She was being selfish, but the sound of Haruna's voice made her feel like that was okay. "I thought, maybe... you'd want to talk. About everything that you're feeling right now." She hated that she felt this way. Her mouth felt dry, and the energy drink didn't help at all. "Because I think we both have some… complicated feelings right now."

She might have been forgiven for thinking Haruna had hung up for a moment. ”Yeah. Yeah.” The light girl paused to gather herself. ”Um. . . well, first of all. I should, um. Apologize. That whole thing was. . . sorta my fault. Sorry.” Haruna was clearly trying to maintain a neutral tone, but a quiver in her voice betrayed the intensity of the aforementioned feelings.

"Haruna." Kiyo's voice was soft but stern. The cat raised its head a little at the sound of her voice from the other end of the line. "You can't shoulder the blame yourself. We both wanted Michi to be a part of our group. We all passed her plushies around." Her eye drifted restlessly to the closet. When she'd arrived back at her room, she'd wanted to rip the thing's head off and throw it in the garbage, but for some reason... she didn't. She hated these ambiguously tangled, heightened emotions. She stubbornly turned her eye back to the laptop, the buggy script reminding her that even machines dealt in uncertainty. She then gave up on it for the night, and laid down in her bed. "The right to veto her joining belongs to me, Roche and Rei. We had the final say, and I... should've involved those two more." She inhaled sharply. "But I didn't want them to say no. She just seemed so hopeless, like every dark girl does when they first fall."

”I was the one that insisted that we all try to get along, though. I pushed her into joining the club, and toward going back to school. I’m the one who refused to actually confront her on something only I could have known about, and because of it, pretty much everyone in the club got hurt.” She sounded increasingly agitated as she spoke. ”And I still don’t understand what it was she actually wanted. . .” There was an uncharacteristic note of despair in this last.

Kiyo listened patiently as the light girl poured out her anguish. A month ago, perhaps, she’d have relished Haruna’s progress to becoming one of them, but now… what was this complicated feeling? "You were hurt more than anyone else, you know? Please worry about yourself, at least a little? I can't speak for the others, but I know I'll be okay." Maybe if she said it like it was a promise, it would come true. "It might take a little while for the shock to subside. Michi said some pretty nasty things... but we ended up taking down that giga miseria that gave us so much trouble before. Rei isn't even mad or anything, either. On the contrary, she almost seems happy to finally get to do boss-like work again. She's already coming up with some solutions for what to do about the school."

She let go of another breath. "What Michi probably wanted was some imprecise notion of revenge. Against the city, against the world—everyone she felt let down by. Regardless, I don’t think giving her what she wanted would have done any good. Most dark girls carry with them some feeling of betrayal. ...We didn't become magical with the intention of falling to darkness, after all." Kiyo paused for a moment to collect herself. That wasn't something she'd intended to say, and she was allowing her voice to sound too melancholic.

"Haruna." Her voice returned, uncharacteristically warm. "I... wish you could see yourself through the eyes of a dark magical girl. When I realized you'd really reached Michi, I couldn't look away. To us who are steeped in darkness... you're dazzling."

Rustling sounded over the phone as Haruna wiped at her eyes and nose. ”I. . . I don’t really know what to say.” She took a (still rather sniffly) breath. ”I’m not really good for much, if I’m being honest. But it makes me happy to hear you say something like that about me. Like, actually happy. I feel like I actually did something good for once.” She was quiet for another moment, gathering herself a bit.

“Um. . . I don’t really know how. . .” she began haltingly. Whatever it was she was trying to ask was clearly an unpleasant topic, from the way the brief rise in her voice quickly dropped away. “Did you. . . hear Michi? What she said about me, near the end there?”

Kiyo was glad Haruna couldn't see her. Whatever face she was making, it definitely wasn't the cool, reliable one she wanted it to be. Haruna was in pain, and she wasn't there. She wasn't sure if she wanted to slap sense into her, or hug her until she stopped crying—maybe both, just to be safe. In the meantime, her substitute—the cat—was nuzzling Haruna’s forearm greedily. "I... didn't. I wasn't there to catch you like I said I would. Sorry." That wasn't the kind of fall she'd been talking about back then, but she tried for a little levity. "I'm sure she only said it to hurt you. So, I'm glad I didn't. Whatever it is, I'll listen when you're ready to tell me." Kiyo felt a lump in her throat after the words had finished spilling out. Wasn't 'when' a little presumptuous? "Unless you'd rather not." She was making a mess of this by talking too much instead of just listening. She remembered Michi's accusation that she was only hanging around this Club because she wanted to be the solution to everyone's problems. The words were like a knife in her gut every time she remembered them.

”N-no, I honestly can’t think of anyone else I’d rather talk to about this.” Haruna took a deep breath, audible through the microphone. ”S-she said, um. . .” She trailed off, leaving Kiyo with nothing but the sound of her breathing heavily for an uncomfortable moment. ”I think, maybe, this is the kind of thing to talk about in person. If that’s okay. I know you’re busy. Let’s just say, um, Michi. . . knew things. Knows things. That she shouldn’t. That I haven’t actually told anyone in town. I guess she probably got it from peeking in on my dreams or something.” The discomfort in her tone was audible, and the slight hypocrisy of that discomfort was far from lost on her.

One more steadying breath, and she continued. ”I want to meet you as soon as I’m out of the hospital. Maybe before, even.” Haruna paused. ”I-if that’s not too much to ask. I know you have a lot to handle. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of you looking out for everyone else, you know? I’ll, I’ll be fine eventually. Er, not eventually I mean- you know what I mean.”

Kiyo sat up in her bed urgently. She paused, wondering if it had made a sound on the other end. Her hesitation, and the silence were both unbearable—but it was probably even more unbearable for Haruna, she thought with a twinge of guilt. She wanted to see Haruna, but didn't want Haruna to see her. "...I'll be there in ten minutes." She'd done it, now—told someone she would do it, and now she had to follow through. It was the only way she knew to force herself to move forward at times like this.

Haruna breathed a sigh of relief after Kiyo spoke, which she awkwardly cut off once she realized she’d actually let it out. ”Okay.” She almost asked if Kiyo would be okay crossing town in the middle of the night like this, but something told her the dark girl was probably perfectly fine doing so. ”I’m on the uh. . . second floor? I think?” She cast around the room, squinting through the dim lighting. ”Room 224.”

"Yeah," Kiyo replied, without really thinking. Of course, she'd learned the room number by watching through the eyes of the cat. It took significantly less than ten minutes for Evil Eye to arrive at the hospital. What took a little more time was waiting for a nurses' aide to open the automatic glass door for her so she could slip inside unnoticed after visiting hours. By the time she got inside, however, she grew impatient. Ah, whatever. After Shuuko's antics, everyone thinks this hospital is haunted, anyway. She proceeded through the rest of the doors on her own, ignoring reactions from the desk clerks.

When she reached the lonely hallway housing door 224, it wasn't the staff that kept her waiting outside. She took a deep breath. Her reflection on the door's window stared blankly at her. Just don't think about what you want. It doesn't matter, anyway. When she felt confident that she'd 'emptied her mind,' she slowly entered. Like the cat's eyes, hers glowed crimson in the dark. "Haruna, I'm here." She spoke softly, though she knew nobody but Haruna could hear her voice. She made her way to the chair the cat had eerily perched on, quietly moved it to Haruna's bedside, and sat. Even in the low light, her face was faintly illuminated by a red glow. Darkness lurked beneath her eyes, proving Haruna's hunch right. She hadn't been sleeping well, though that was nothing terribly new for either of them. "Don't worry. I wasn't doing anything important," she said, as if anticipating the concern.

”Hey, Kiyo,” Haruna said, quietly. ”Thanks for coming here so fast. It. . . it means a lot, even if you weren’t busy.” Her tone indicated that she didn’t really believe Kiyo’s insistence, but she also failed to press the issue in any way. The light girl looked over to meet her crimson gaze. ”There’s probably a couple other things I should mention, but, um. . .” She trailed off again, fidgeting in place. ”Sorry. This subject is. . . hard. Really, really, really hard.”

Haruna closed her eyes, then looked straight ahead, staring into the dark nothing ahead of her. ”What Michi said was something about how I would always be an outsider, because everyone who could have loved me is dead.” She took a deep, slow breath, ragged despite her efforts. ”And. . . well. She’s. Right.” A choked sob forced its way out of her throat.

Kiyo's heart, vessel of her hatred for Michi, broke, spilling its contents into the pit of her stomach. "Haruna..." She breathed her name, softly. Her hand, without thinking—but not uncalculated—reached out for hers.

Her heart also leapt for joy. Haruna had feelings she could relate to, and out of all the people she could have opened up to about them, she'd chosen her—the wicked magical girl called 'Evil Eye.' You feel truly alone... and blame yourself, don't you? Just like me, she thought, but didn't dare speak those words—those last three, damning words most of all.

Her heart also withered, and wanted to die. So why won't you fall, like me? How do you still have the strength to hold fast to light? Why won't you just let go of your impossible burdens?!

The real world offered no distractions, no escape from either of the girls' inner turmoil. The room contained only a deathly silence, occasionally broken by the beep of the EKG machine. They both knew Haruna wouldn't die, yet it still created an artificial sense of urgency that played into their anxieties. Relief only came when the other spoke. Kiyo knew it. Every second of silence she allowed to pass through her puppeteering fingers felt like a calculated move, a manipulative pull on Haruna's heartstrings. Still, she selfishly took those seconds to choose careful words. She simply didn't know any other way to be. That was what she told herself to assuage her guilt.

"Do you... blame yourself for that, too?" Like an IV drip, her self-indulgent words kept coming, slowly. She knew what Haruna's answer would be by now. Many desires tried to rise up from the obscuring filth of her greedy, wicked heart. She suppressed them, one by one, in a coordinated ritual dance of self-denial. Shamefully, she wondered if Haruna could see it. Guiltily, she hoped Haruna could relate—another girl who poured the best parts of herself out for others until nothing remained but dregs, because feeling empty was better than drowning in her own overflowing emotions.

”I. . . I don’t know. I don’t know,” she repeated. ”It doesn’t make any sense. I keep thinking about it and I still don’t understand. One day they were here and then they just. . . weren’t. And I was the only one left. Because I was tired. I don’t understand why they’re gone and I’m still here, I don’t understand what they needed from me, I don’t know what I was supposed to be doing different. I-I guess-” The flow of words cut off as Haruna ran out of breath, then raggedly tried to recover it through a nose clogged with the ugly reality of grief.

“I feel like. If I was. . . better. Then somehow, maybe, something would have gone differently. Maybe they would have left earlier, maybe Dad would have noticed that driver if he hadn’t been distracted, maybe, I don’t know, maybe I would have just fucking died as a disappointment.” This last came out with an uncharacteristic vehemence, a kind of bitter rage Haruna hadn’t displayed toward anyone else before. Her hand, clasped to Kiyo’s without thinking, squeezed down hard for a moment, before she realized what she was doing and let go.

”S-sorry. I shouldn’t. . . I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m, I’m trying not to listen too but it’s hard not to, you always come through really clear to me. T-that’s the other thing I wanted to say, sorry, I should have said it earlier, I should have said a lot of things earlier. . .” Haruna, despite her attempts at pulling back up, trailed off into sobbing, unconsciously shifting toward Kiyo in her pain.

As Haruna drew closer, so did Kiyo. In her case, it was a conscious move—calculated, like everything else. She embraced the fragile light that threatened to flicker out at any moment, and let Haruna sob into her shoulder. "Sshhh... You're not a disappointment." Kiyo's reflection in the mirror on the restroom door returned a mocking, inquisitive look, as if asking if those words of comfort were meant for Haruna, or her. She returned its smile of self-loathing, but kept her vile emotions to herself, gently stroking Haruna's hair soothingly.

Kiyo knew she was a disgusting creature. Picking with a needle at the revolting feelings infecting her heart like a cancer, she knew she could not deny the diagnosis. She knew this disease by the name of "love." It was the desire to keep this precious spark of true Light all to herself. It was what kept her from reaching her full potential as a dark magical girl. It was what was slowly killing her inside, but no matter how hard she tried to remove it, it kept coming back, and she always found herself inviting it in, against her better judgment.

"I won't let Michi's words be true," she whispered softly, resolute. The words echoed in her mind like a judge's gavel—a condemnation. "If you feel like an outsider—unloved, incapable... come talk to me." She tore her eyes away from the mirror, away from the Truth staring back at her with derision. "Please, don't go," she muttered under a hitched breath. Don't disappear into the night, like I did.

Haruna continued to cry for a while, sobbing into Kiyo and wrapping her arms around her. From her perspective, it could have been half a minute, or half an hour. Eventually, though, the tears tapered off, and then ceased. “I-I won’t, I won’t go. I. . . no, I’m not, I’m not going to say sorry.” She squeezed her arms again, this time more gently, deliberately. “Thank you. For being here. I haven’t actually. . . talked about this to anyone, not really.” Haruna pulled back, giving Kiyo a sort of bittersweet smile. ”This isn’t very Evil of you, you know,” she said, before wiping at her nose with a sleeve on her hospital gown. ”Maybe I’m the one corrupting you.”

The look of focused empathy in Kiyo's eyes became vacant and distant, like she was remembering something. Then she, too, had a bittersweet smile. "Don't you remember what Michi said... about me?" Her eyes lingered vaguely on the mirror behind Haruna. "I'm evil enough for the whole club, Haruna. I want..." Her voice trailed off. She frowned, but there was no sadness on her features.

”You want?” Kiyo knew, of course, that Haruna could probably suss out what she wanted, even now, but the light girl asked anyway. The slight note of tension in the question was enough for Kiyo to know she was still grappling with the idea of her abilities and what they did, after what Michi had said.

Kiyo's eyes lingered on her reflection in the mirror. A cruel smile formed on her lips as her eyes seemed to drift even further away from reality. "...Redemption?" she tried, mockingly. "...No, that's not it." She frowned again. "Maybe another time... I'll have a better answer..." she mumbled, closing her eyes and shaking her head slowly. When she opened her eyes again, the haze had cleared somewhat. She seemed more tired now than anything.

She stood, reached out a hand, and ruffled Haruna's hair softly. "Payback." She smiled mischievously.

Haruna smiled back, a little less tensely than before. “Well, I’ll have to watch out for that. But, right. . . I did mean to mention. Or, I kinda already mentioned it, but I was sorta bawling at the time. . . um, anyway. I don’t really know for sure why, but my ability to sense people’s desires seems like it sorta goes into overdrive with you sometimes. It caught me off guard the first time it happened. Does that. . . bother you?”

Kiyo averted her gaze, contemplating. "That's not too surprising. Since I can... force my desires upon others, if I maintain eye contact with them long enough. Even when I'm untransformed, it seems normal humans just can't help but want to do things for me. In a way, sharing my desires with others is natural. For you, it must be like drinking from a fire hose." For a moment, Evil Eye seemed regretful that she had become this way. "It... makes it really hard to tell if anyone actually cares about me. But, you..." Her cheeks darkened in the soft red glow of her eyes. "You're genuinely kind. You would still treat me the same even if I didn't have 'pretty' eyes." She smiled, but it didn't last long. "Do my eyes—my desires—scare you? Can you hear them now?"

Evil Eye's piercing red gaze met Haruna. The last time Haruna felt Kiyo's desires so strongly, they had been like a pair of monsters at each other's throats, competing for dominance, while a cacophony of smaller desires scrambled for shelter to not be trampled. Her heart was like a swamp: filthy, but full of life. At other times, her desires only threatened to emerge from the mire, but Kiyo pushed them back down, like that time she had briefly wanted to pet Michi like a cat—like she was doing to Haruna just a moment ago.

This time, the landscape of Kiyo's heart sounded like a white noise that drowned out everything. Her lips didn't move, and her throat didn't make a sound, but Haruna felt a profound sense of yearning. Kiyo's heart was full of many things that she wanted to say, but something buried deep inside her was desperately choking out its voice. It was as if she'd made it her greatest desire to not have any desires at all—to have the entire ecosystem in her heart completely purged. Such discipline belonged in the minds of elder monks training in the foothills of Tibet, not the heart of a high school girl. Mascots approached young girls because they had lots of desires, wishes they'd spring at the chance to have granted. Just like that time she'd felt Tsubomi's desire to 'kill Tsubomi,' there was something dreadfully off-putting about this.

She nodded slowly. Haruna shuffled closer to Kiyo, doing her best to avoid detaching any of the monitoring equipment attached to her. Gently, she reached her arms out, and pulled Kiyo into a less haphazard approximation of a hug than before. ”Yeah. I can.” Her voice had a sad note to it, despite seeming. . . well, happy was the wrong term, but in a much better place than she had been before Kiyo’s appearance. “There’s only one thing in there that scares me.” She paused for a moment, considering what, exactly, she wanted to say. “It’s okay if this makes you happy. You know? Everyone wants things. It’s not bad or good to have desires.” She gave no indication of the hypocrisy latent in this statement.

Kiyo leaned into Haruna's embrace. She didn't return it so much as sink into it, like one of those padded pillars at the old dojo when she'd completely run out of strength to go on. "Only one..?" she replied, mildly incredulous. For a moment, it seemed like she might call Haruna on her bluff, but she seemed to be mulling over which one she was talking about. "Wanting things you don't deserve is a sin, you know..." she mused with a whisper. Finally, she sighed. She sat back down in her chair, laying her head down on the side of the bed, where the cat used to be. "...Okay. I won't become a demon." A demon? Like Schrade, the Demon of Hibusa?

She didn't leave much time to dwell on the question. "I confirmed my suspicions about Rei. As long as we are under her watch, we'll never outgrow her shadow. We'll never become strong enough to beat Ashbringer." She turned her eyes up tiredly at Haruna. "I was thinking... about visiting my hometown. It's just on the other side of the mountain. I'd be taking a train. ...Wanna go?"

The other girl nodded. ”Yeah.” She took the opportunity to return Kiyo’s earlier pat, though a bit awkwardly given the relative angles involved. ”You should get some rest first, though. I feel okay, so I’ll probably be out of here soon.” Haruna smiled, a more understated, but much more genuine-feeling expression than the ones she presented to most other people. ”I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Kiyo smiled wistfully. It was difficult to say if she felt 'better.' At least having the diagnosis was better than being left in suspense, she supposed. "...Thanks." For a moment, she didn't move from that spot. She just let Haruna run her fingers through her silky hair. It was still slightly damp from the rain. She almost seemed to consider sleeping right there. "Mm. Get well soon... but also, don't rush it?" She voiced her uncertainty, and immediately realized that it was unlike her. "I'll visit. Text me if you want me to bring something. Hospital food is terrible." She laughed, and that seemed to give her the energy to stand up. She bid Haruna farewell with a squeeze of her hand, and a few scritches for the cat nestled between Haruna's feet.

She nodded. ”Will do. Thanks again.” Haruna gave Kiyo a final wave, before attempting to settle back into her bed and. . . well, pretend she was trying to sleep, anyway. She looked just a bit less troubled than she often did.

---

Tsubomi watched the lantern of her life spin away from her. Or she would have, if her sight wasn't flashing a rainbow of colors across her cornea as a myriad of poisons flowed through her veins. There was no replay of life, no almost-fifteen years of experiences being shown like a movie as it slipped away. There was only the taste of blood alongside a detached sense of reality that dulled the pain of her chipped skull.

The Miseria crouching on her back raised its hand to tear out the back of her throat, but it never came down to do so. Instead, there was a loud *crack* from a nearby rooftop, and the monster vanished into smoke.

The gun's wielder came floating down to the drug-addled teen, unaware of what had happened before her arrival. But she could feel the hint of magic from the girl prone on the concrete.

She glanced around the area only to see the bodies of others who tried to run from reality.

"Are you okay? That Miseria nearly got you. Looks like it already got some others... If only I got here sooner..."

There was a true sorrow in her voice, but Tsubomi couldn't feel it. All she could feel was a growing emptiness inside herself, as if it were consuming everything it touched but never gaining any nourishment to fill it.

She didn't hear anything, after that. She didn't feel anything from that point either, the drugs seeming to have somehow left her body. All she could do was allow herself to be pulled up by the Magical Girl, unaware of anything that happened.

When she found herself in a hospital, she didn't answer the doctors' questions. Even if she had wanted to, she couldn't. They found the cocktail in her bloodstream, of course, but even with the psychiatrists' help, they couldn't get her to explain why or how it was there.

The first day passed without her opening her mouth even once. She didn't remember how to speak.

When she was taken off of IVs, she didn't remember how to eat.

When she finally returned home, she didn't have the wherewithal to do anything she had done before that night.

Like a zombie, her dazed and hazy mind growing more and more blank by the day, she shambled through the motions of her previous life. Too slow to move and too slow to think, everything she had ever worked for, ever poured herself into doing... it all faded alongside her very self.

And so she did not realize that she was on the train to Hibusa. She didn't not realize that she could no longer move the body that she had stopped feeling long ago. She did not know that it would be the last time she would fail to realize anything at all.

Tsubomi's body, moving on autopilot, had barely managed to plug in her precious MP3 under the desk in her new home. It stood up, and turned towards the bed that it would spend the next year in. It tripped, and Tsubomi finally faded into nothingness.

---

---

Suika felt something, as she lay on her back, unsure how she got there. Something was poking her cheek.

When her eyes finally opened, they saw someone standing above them. Someone who sure looked like Tsubomi, but something was wrong.

Yes, even now, she could remember what had happened to her. In spite of the weariness, she knew that the Tsubomi she saw was too... complete, to be what remained after the dream. This Tsubomi seemed as if she were the original.

Tsubomi's foot poked Acid Drop's cheek once more, but said nothing. The supine girl didn't move.

"Hey. What are you doing laying down? Don't you have someone to stand up for?" The girl sneered down at her. "Do you really have time to take a nap?"

No, of course not. Suika knew that this wasn't real, that this wasn't Tsubomi. But she still couldn't tear herself away from the specter that looked down on her.

But then it was gone, and Suika was alone. She slowly sat upright only to hear another voice from behind her.

"My magic is empathy, so let's test yours. Put yourself in my position. Would you want to coexist with something that took your life away from you?"

No, of course not. Suika shook her head to try to clear it. Were these the lingering remnants of Tsubomi's mind, left behind after being knocked out of it?

She could feel something pushing its way into her mind. Tsubomi's memories, the sum of her experiences, the stimuli that had formed her into who she had been... She could feel them. She could grasp them as if they were her own. It seemed that she really had ingested the parts of her host that had been cut away, as if they had been turned to mulch.

Where, then, was Tsubomi? The remainder of the unfortunate girl who had been cursed by Suika's existence?

The invader couldn't sense her. All she could do was wait and see if she'd see the poor flower again.

---

---

The sun was too bright; from the moment it peeked over the horizon, its rays stabbed into the now-insomniac girl's closed eyes with the passion of her own aunt's knitting needles. The early birds were singing, their notes bashing into Tsubomi's ears like war-hammers on equally prepared for war drums, and to top it all off, there was still that annoying cicada who had been buzzing all night.

This was... wait a minute. This seemed familiar...

Ah, right. This was how she had awoken the last time she'd come to after using up all of her emotional stockpile. It was almost too similar, but at least the memories of what had happened after remained.

It seemed she'd been out for about... thirty hours, if the clock was accurate. Somewhat surprising that her caretakers hadn't taken her to the hospital in that time.

... Surprising? Surprising, her mind reminded her, was 'of a nature to excite wonder and astonishment.' In other words: Why the hell was she surprised by anything!?

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Even if only tangentially, she should not have been experiencing anything even slightly akin to emotion. Her existence wouldn't allow for that.

Sure, she still didn't know what she actually was, or where she came from, but in the span of her entire 'life,' she hadn't really felt surprise before. And yet she knew that was what this was. It felt almost the same to her magic sense as it would from another person, just... weaker.

Was this a result of her magic being dead? It couldn't be, she could feel the sensation as if it were someone else's, so she had to still have her magic, right?

Suika threw her senses outward in the hopes of feeling something from the adults in the home, but there was nothing for her to feel.

Instead, another alien sensation boiled upwards into her throat; for the first time since her conception, Suika felt fear. The lingering fear that a human would have felt the whole time since the dream a day and a half ago.

Why couldn't she find Tsubomi?

It had been a few days since the reported gas leak caused Hibusa High to blow up in such a spectacular fashion. Once the news got over the fact that there were miraculously no casualties, they started asking bigger questions. How would thousands of students continue their education?

Hibusa High was a huge school. Pretty much every highschooler in Hibusa went there, and the smaller schools didn’t have enough room to take everyone in. One proposed idea was to send all of the students into the City of Light to resume their education. Parents and students alike protested the idea. The city was already a congested space, and it was an hour trip just to get there via bike. But that would never really happen. Even if the club room was gone, the Detention Club still held tremendous influence over the school system, and by extension could influence where the authorities chose to station their new, temporary place of learning.

Rei had called for a meeting. Rather than assembling at the club room, Rei, Kiyo, and Roche all met in front of a random mansion in the same neck of the neighborhood as Norika’s house. Despite all that had happened, Rei was looking rather pleased.

"Think I found a place that will take us in." The club president had her hands in her pockets. "A rustic mansion would make for a nice club room, wouldn’t it?"

The Rulekeeper met the mansion with a flat look cast from a face withered from the absence of sleep and the stress of the school’s destruction. One didn’t fully grasp the relief of their vices till they were absent, and the Track team wasn't going to have any meets with circumstances as they were.

Dark circles were prevalent even on her skin and those eyes slid from the mansion to their illustrious leader. One who she couldn’t help but consider under a new light in the wake of Sink Queen’s parting words.

"It would, but if we could afford a mansion we’d be living far better then most of us are." Roche sighed, knowing that as little sense as it made, Rei had already

decided and pulled the mansion out of her perky ass. "So are we haunting this place as Magical Girls or did you inherit this from a wealthy uncle? Can’t see the funeral business paying for all this and we aren’t making cash off Miseria."

Kiyo glanced tiredly between her two superiors and the mansion. With the school out of commission, she'd finally ditched her school uniform for black camo jeans and a brand new leather jacket: small, non-committal steps towards the vision of acquiring a new bike. "It's nice." She grinned like an appeased crocodile. "It's no smaller a target than before, and being out of the way of collateral civvies might embolden light girls to attack—but at least it's roomy. Do they allow pets?" She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her own joke.

"They will if I ask them." She side-eyed Kiyo. "Though I can’t recall the light girls ever attacking the school. At least, not damaging it in the process." She looked at the mansion again. "We are in a well to do part of the town. It wouldn’t be good for the normals if it got attacked."

To Roche, she turned completely. "We aren’t buying it." Then, without elaborating further, she walked away from the house. The other two naturally followed her. Though the first thing that Roche noticed was that she was getting closer to Norika’s house. In fact, the plot that Rei had selected was behind it on a different street. "We’re going to convince someone else to do that for us." She folded her hands behind her back. "Rich people like their tax breaks. There’s something we might be able to work here. Not that I know the law that well." Her smile widened. "But it should be doable. Roche has been helping their daughter with their tuition, and is one of the few people who can get her to learn anything. It is in their best interest to keep students like you in Hibusa."

It didn’t take a genius to see what Rei was prodding at and Roche’s expression curdled like milk. She stuffed her hands into her wind breaker, knuckles brushing along the 8-Ball. "They make it sound like she’s some kind of idiot, but Norika just lacks a solid foundation. Really, if they hadn’t kept cooped up and isolated, she’d probably be…"

Honor roll? Maybe. But she’d certainly be leagues more well adjusted. Might not even be a Dark Girl if she’d had the chance to form more attachments then just her brother.

"Che. If we’re taking her family’s money, I’m for it. Real bastards." The rule keeper spat out, turning aside to feign interest in the high end neighborhood, finding it easier to swallow then Rei’s flattery.

"That bad, huh?" Kiyo replied with vague interest. She wasn't really familiar with Nyxia's circumstances. Roche looked after her, and that was where she'd left the matter. The girl was convinced Kiyo was a terrible person, and she didn't care enough to change her mind for her. "I won't say no to spending somebody else's money. I'm still broke." But not too broke to splurge on a nice jacket, it would seem.

"Let’s have a game plan, then." Rei tipped her head side to side in apparent thought. "Roche is the diligent tutor, I’m the head of the detention club, what sort of sympathetic role could we cast Kiyo in?"

Kiyo had just been wondering if she should have come wearing her best 'honor student' look when, finally, Rei got her eyes to widen. "What."

"Treasurer? We can plan out the tax incentives and Kiyo reads them off to make it look more put together. Sprinkle in some tripe about the prestige and optics of it all, and they won’t think twice." The rule keeper posited, something close to amusement passing over her flinty facade. "Can’t be me since I’m the Tutor."

"Treasurer? Of what?" Rei looked at Kiyo and the smile ran from her face. "Could she pull it off? That sort of thing is usually left to adults and not delinquents, no?" She tipped her head "The leather jacket really isn’t doing it for me. The camo pants aren’t much better."

"Just reveling in my last ounce of freedom, here," Kiyo growled back like a cornered alley cat. "I was held back for vaguely-defined 'attitude issues,' not being stupid. Have you forgotten I can hypnotize people?"

"No, I’m just making sure you’re paying attention." Rei winked.

"Can you make people be lesser assholes? Or maybe just extremely careless with flaunting money? We’re going to need something that holds up for a long time here. With the school like it, we might not even graduate there." Roche pointed out, not keen on relying entirely on keeping someone hypnotized for a long time.

"Hypnotizing someone for an extended period of time could be problematic." Rei ‘s eye wandered the sky. "But using it to guide someone to an outcome they would have arrived at anyway should be fine. Don’t the rich like to invest their money in property anyway?" There were likely better plots than anything in Hibusa town, but that wasn’t a concern for the Detention club. "You still need a reason for being here, biker girl."

"Or I could just fuck off," Kiyo muttered under her breath, but the trio didn't seem very likely to let her go without some token of humiliation. Perhaps it was payment for letting Michi into the Club.

Willow floated out from behind a bush and hovered on the other side of Kiyo. "And it can’t be as Rei’s lesbian biker girlfriend. I’ill eat your eyes if you do that!" Rei looked past Kiyo at Willow with a raised eyebrow. "Oh! I’m just getting my exercise in. I figured I’d say hi since you were here." Her smile was so sweet it could rot the teeth of onlookers.

"What if we say you’re an Arts tutor? You’re plenty creative. Bring in some water colors, some oil paints, maybe a pottery wheel, and you’ve got yourself a role that isn’t too front facing."

What humor she’d found was flung off the nearest cliff by Willow’s entry, and she thanked what fortune she had she’d never held a torch for the most public ally embarrassing member of the club.

"Hello, Willow. Please don’t talk to Norika’s parents."

"Ugh, no biker girlfriends." She resisted the urge to cringe. "They're probably old-fashioned, so they won't go for it if it involves a school that churns out lesbians. Just tell them I'm homeless or something." Her comment was flippant, but then she smirked. "Actually, I'm the only girl in the Club with a driver's license. There we go, all set."

"I’d argue that but I think Rei’s the only one here who held a boy’s hand."

"Really? When?" Kiyo replied, skeptical.

Will raised an eyebrow. "I too am interested in this information."

"They’re not going to be interested in the love lives of teenagers, and we shouldn’t bore them with such details." Rei’s brow was noticeably pointed. "Driver works. It would be better if we had a vehicle on hand. Doesn’t matter though, we have hypnotism for that, right?"

Before long, the four girls were in front of the gates. It was all very grandiose, with a cast iron archway big enough to fit a semi if it pleased them. The property was a lot longer than it looked too. For such a giant house, it was at the very back of a large plot of property and surrounded by trees. Quite unlike the ‘modest’ sized mansion they had been looking at before, which was right by the road.

"Welp, this is where I depart." Willow prepared to fly away before looking back at Kiyo. "I have something I need to tell you about, but it can wait until you’re done with the boss. You’re not getting away from me that easily." And just like that, she faded from sight.

"Hmmm." Rei rolled her shoulders and fluffed up her jacket. "Ready?"

"As we will ever be."

"As I'll ever be," Kiyo replied in unison with Roche. She sighed, certain that whatever Willow wanted to talk about was not going to be a pleasant conversation. "And just call me next time!" she shouted after her. Then, she also adjusted her jacket. "Alright, if either of them ask about me, just pretend you don't know me very well. That way I can keep my story straight."

"So we would bring a stranger to this? Let’s not complicate things. You’re the driver, and we have you certified to handle Norika’s transportation needs so they see some value. These aren’t deep people, philosophically speaking."

"I meant that if they ask the kind of nosy, personal questions only old people feel the need to ask," Kiyo clarified with a hand wave. "Stuff you wouldn't need to know, and probably don't, anyway."

"Then you hypnotize them if they get nosy and give simple, uninteresting answers. As long as you don’t wave a neon sign saying you kick puppies or plant cameras in bathrooms, they will be all too happy to dismiss you."

"I’ve barely talked to them since I’ve started giving Norika lessons, and unless she bombs hard I don’t see that changing."

Rei cleared her throat with a single cough. "I think Kiyo knows how to use her powers." She stepped in front of the gate. "The goal is not to make the school look good for their daughter. These rich types don’t enroll their kids in public schools for a reason. That, and if they really hate her that much we’d be wasting our time." The gates swung open slowly, likely due to some machine that wasn’t visible. "It just needs to look like a good investment. And to that end, I think we can make such a purchase look… Interesting."

…

…

…

There would be no spotting Norika from the windows as they approached. Her window had been shattered, and was boarded up while a custom replacement was on order. They went through all the rich people rituals that people like Norika’s parents liked to go through. They met with a beautiful maid, who guided them to a spot where they could take off their shoes before passing through a massive garden. After witnessing an immaculate garden filled with expensive (but not necessarily beautiful) statues, the trio was guided into a lounging room filled with western style furniture.

"Mr Tsukishima will be with you shortly." she said before swiftly departing.

Rei took a seat on the center of a couch. "Now we wait."

"He’s a busy man, after all." Roche replied, sitting stiffly on one end, a stick firmly shoved up her backside as she made the effort to look every bit the dignified tutor she’d sold herself as.

"Be mindful what you say aloud. The staff likely expect us to steal the silverware." Her voice was low and soft, the feeling of being watched by cold, merciless eyes something she expected from the Tsukishima residence.

"Indeed?" Kiyo replied, her voice seeming a bit strange, but in a way that was hard to pinpoint when she'd spoken only a single word. She reached behind herself, as if to flatten a skirt that wasn't there, before sitting on the other side of Rei with her hands in her lap, knees together and back straightened in impeccable posture. She'd made it all look perfectly effortless, but it was clearly a practiced motion.

They didn’t have to wait long. Mr Tsukishima showed up after just a few minutes. "Greetings." Rei bowed her head when they were addressed, and so did the others. He took a seat in an armchair across from them, "And it is especially good to see you again, Miss Hananami. Though I doubt the three of you have come to tutor my bothersome daughter."

"Afraid not." Rei gave the man an amused smile. "We spoke earlier on the phone. I’m Rei Ishiko, president of the detention club. I’m sure you’ve seen the news and know our predicament."

"The gas leak at the school." He practically groaned the words. "You said it would be a good idea for me to buy the property adjoining mine and to let the school use it for a time. Though you seem a little fuzzy on how that would actually benefit me. I’m not a charity, as I’m sure you’re aware."

"Perhaps not, but you are just as much a pillar of the community. Just as your business and investments support countless in our fair city, we would ask you to consider being a patron for the school in our time of need. It is a task you are singularly suited for, and one that would confer the respect of the city upon you."

It was a miracle she didn’t look as though she bit into a lemon, but knowing Rei would appeal to greed, she made the effort to flatter his ego.

"The incident could have been a tragedy," Kiyo interjected, and now it became clear what was strange about her voice. She was speaking formally, with a smooth Italian accent, and a warm smile. It was like the Kiyo they knew had been replaced by another from a totally different world. "But since no one was hurt, it is an opportunity to build a better school in its place, with more buildings, given new names—not those of mourning families, but hopeful investors from our community." She tented her fingers hopefully and met his eyes with hers. "As for the villa, we would truly only need it for a short time. During that time, we will, of course, do all that we are able to accommodate your wishes for its upkeep, to protect your investment. The tax writeoffs are also worth your consideration."

"Additionally, the property borders your own." Rei added. "It would be a good way of protecting your existing investments, provided you have the funds. I apologize if we’re asking you to do something that’s outside your means."

"Well that’s not a problem, I assure you." He laughed, but his brow twitched. "I’ll strongly consider it. What’s owning an extra house in this town? But why is the ‘Detention Club’ before me right now?"

Rei smiled. "We were well respected at Hibusa high."

The large man dropped his hand on his knee. "I’m well aware of that, young lady. But last I heard, Hibusa High is no more. Relocation of the school is a government matter, which should be well above the station of some school club that doesn’t exist anymore. So why are you here instead of some government representatives?"

Roche answered next, head slightly bowed in deference to the man they were shamelessly buttering up in one breath and negging with the next. "That would be because a government representative would imply the government is even planning the reconstruction. In the face of such a disaster, efforts appear focused squarely on finding someone culpable over resolving the issue of a destroyed school. It might be years before they even break ground on the building process if it were left solely to elected officials, and in doing so the city may have to export its youth abroad."

"The traffic and lost work hours would be staggering, but not nearly as unpalatable as the shame of being incapable of providing for our city’s families."

"Fufu." Kiyo seized the moment of silence to politely laugh at Roche's remarks. "'Good enough for government work' is the saying, yes? That is why we are taking an initiative. It would hardly be the first time. Tough but rewarding work," she repeated as a mantra, releasing a weary sigh. Her eyes turned wistful. She wasn't sure where Rei got the confidence that casting themselves in a sympathetic light would work on this man, but she decided to follow her lead. "If nothing is done, I too may have to leave Japan." The unease and disappointment of one delivering bad news to her friends on the couch was uncannily genuine.

"Hmph! No need to act like that. I was just curious." Mr Tsukishima stood up. "Even if it’s a small amount of money for me, it’s still enough that I should think about it. But you girls have presented some good points. Was that all you needed?"

"If you’re done talking, so are we." Rei stood up, as did the other girls.

"Very well. If you had stayed much longer, I’d have been forced to have the kitchen make us something."

"Good thing it didn’t come to that." Rei nodded at their host, and saw herself out with them in toe. A maid accompanied them out the front door, and their trip was far less touristy in nature on the way out. As soon as they got outside, the maid bowed to them and departed. But Rei kept walking without turning around. It wasn’t until they got halfway between the exit gate and the mansion that she finally spoke. "That went really well. I’d be shocked if he doesn’t buy it."

The Rulekeeper kept stride, breathing a little easier as she ran a hand down her face. "We asked him to spend his pocket change in order to earn acclaim and prestige in the city. This is legacy grade ego material here, and he can lord this over his peers till the day he dies. A real Japanese Rockefeller."

If there was any Justice in the world he wouldn’t get to enjoy it for too long, but they all knew better then that.

"I hope you did enough groundwork that this won't come back to bite us," Kiyo groaned, leaving her rich girl persona behind as if she'd handed it off to the departing maid for safekeeping. "If I'd known what we were doing, I'd have dressed the part. Getting him to look at me was harder than it needed to be. I'm not sure if my eyes really affected him, or if we just got lucky."

"There was another angle to this." Rei kept her smile up. "That man believes Misoka has stolen from him, and has pressed to have the money recovered. Normally someone like that would want to make an example of the thief, but he’s been very discreet. He hired a PI, he’s talking to Misoka’s family privately, it’s all out of the public eye." Rei put her arms behind her head. "He’s attacking the school’s most promising student. It wouldn’t be a good look for him I think. Helping the school is good insurance if something like that gets out. But turning us down as well as going after Misoka? Not a good look." She shifted her eye to Kiyo. "Knew Roche was going to do a good job, but I liked your foreign student." After walking out of the gate, Rei moved her hands back into her pockets. "Wanna give it a look? The attic is spacious and secluded. Think it’ll be our new club room."

Having an entire attic for the club would be fantastic, offering them to come and go as they pleased.

It was a shame, then, that her mind was rather focused on the little factoid Rei dropped like it wasn’t liable to get several mansions burned down.

"Yeah…let’s go…take a look." The Rule Keeper murmured distantly, her soul leaving her body as she realized that no matter how bad it was, it could certainly get worse. Repeatedly.

"I see. No wonder Misoka looks like hell," Kiyo remarked. She nodded her assent along with Roche, with no further comment. She thought about telling Rei that was her real accent, but didn't see much of a point to it. Nyxia's old man had gone along with their scheme so easily, there had been no need to involve her family connections. She was grateful for it. She should have been happy about it, but for some reason, she felt nothing. The three of them were together, but each seemed to Kiyo to be in their own little world. Rei's was full of some abstract reason for all that smiling, Roche's was filled with her usual strain of anxiety, and hers was filled with... what, exactly?

She wasn't sure what this feeling was. She just knew that she hated it.

---

Regardless of how Suika felt about her situation, it persisted.

With her newfound emotions, she was able to experience things that she had never experienced before. Mainly, Suika noticed that she was starting to care about things. Class was no longer something that she could only manage to stumble to every day. She was aware that her teachers and classmates would have opinions about her. She could respond to people’s emotions with her own emotions. Another thing she became aware of was how emotions could be just as monotonous as not having emotions. Her concern for where Tsubomi had gone off to hadn’t really subsided. She had told Suki some time ago that she was glad she didn’t have emotions. Now she could know if she had answered her own question right or not.

The formerly apathetic girl wanted to hide. She wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep for a year, or better yet to spend that time in her own head to continue her search. But she couldn’t.

She’d only ever wanted things indirectly, usually for the sake of someone else's wanting, but it was always hollow. There was no substance to them. Suddenly, there was a tremendous weight to her growing list of desires.

Finding out what happened to Tsubomi and doing something to help her was at the top, of course. In a close second was finding a way to adapt, or re-remove her newfound feelings if she couldn't.

But those weren't things she could do right now. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't force herself into whatever subliminal world she had interacted with her in before.

Suika wasn't always logical, she knew. In fact, considering that many people considered logic and emotion as separate or entirely opposite, they might think that she must always have had a logical reason for things if she didn't have the turmoil of complex feelings to get in her way. Yet she was always the strange one, always the one who thought differently.

Although, that didn't mean she couldn't think things through. The obvious thing to do in order to fulfill her new desires was to mute her feelings with magic. Which made it all the worse that she couldn't, that she could only feel them with it, unable to so much as nudge them.

It was almost like a reverse of the last time she'd run out of her stockpile. Unable to feel what others felt, and unable to affect what she felt. 'Empathy' had seemingly been replaced with 'empathy.' Consideration of the feelings of others rather than the sense for them. A reality she quickly found that she hated.

What could she possibly do to get the overwhelming maelstrom in her head to calm down? Surely she wasn't the first to have to deal with this sort of thing...

With a sigh, she rose from her prone position to sit upright. This was when a person would rely on their 'friends,' right? Yet another thing she was questioning recently.

Suki had claimed that their situation was one of the duo being friends. Before, Suika had no reason to doubt that. But now, with a deeper understanding of how she had hurt her host and a strong doubt in the motivations of nearly everyone she interacted with, she wasn't sure anymore. And worse, what if they were really friends, and she did something wrong?

... Maybe it was too late for that. With Tsubomi's memories slowly coming under her control she knew that the situation at the Arcade was not a neutral one. People would lie about that sort of thing for less reason than thinking it would save someone's life, even if nothing was actually in danger of happening.

Worse still, what about the rest of the Detention Club? She had never been particularly close, by the standards of a normal person, with any of them... What if they realized that she would only bring them even more trouble? She'd already been kidnapped, so when would they figure out how terrible she really was?

Tsubomi's head struck the wall behind it at the invasive vine's command. Strange, how that seemed to help somehow. And with her Aunt and Uncle out of the house, she didn't have to worry about making too much noise.

'Worry.' What a strange thing that was, to worry. She hated it. Her hands jumped to the sides of her head in an attempt to physically smack sense into it, but like everything she did now, it certainly seemed pointless to her when it failed.

Another sigh escaped her lips. "Might as well find out..."

And so she found herself once more in the Arcade, hesitant for the first time at the idea of spending her pocket money on something that would be over so quickly.

Like back home, the arcade was relatively empty. There were a few people here and there, but nobody that should have been able to instantly recognize Suika. It was the weekend, and most students were doing other things early in the morning. It was a day for relaxing and sleeping in. They’d come to the arcade closer to lunch and definitely later in the day. But right now Suika had the place more or less to herself.

As she stood in front of the token exchange machine, where money was converted into tokens not unlike what happens in a soulless gacha game where money is converted into premium game currency, She was approached by a tall woman.

"What’s this? Have you forgotten how it works?" She grinned. "At least you remembered how to have fun." There was something strangely menacing about her tone, like she both knew about Suika’s predicament and found her suffering amusing. That, or it was the woman’s red hair that made her seem dangerous. Though it wasn’t just her hair. She was clearly a foreigner, if her round eyes were anything to go by.

"Huh!?" Suika nearly jumped out of Tsubomi's skin at the words.

Run. Something insider her seemed to whisper, though she couldn't quite make out the message or its origin.

"Oh, uh, sorry!" Suika turned towards the older girl and stepped back a few times, giving her access to the machine. "I didn't mean to block the way. Sorry."

"Two sorries? My my, even by Japanese standards that’s a bit excessive, isn’t it?" She began feeding money into the machine. While the machine rumbled and spit out her tokens, her eyes were focused on Suika. "Hmm, any reason why you’re here by yourself? The whole point is to do this with someone, isn’t it?" She shrugged. "Guess it can’t be helped, let’s go." She practically pushed Suika in front of a light gun game. It must have been a new one, because it wasn’t a title that she recognized. Something with aliens in it. "Oh, I almost forgot." She picked up one of the light guns. "I go by Regina. What do you prefer? Your friends don’t call you Tsubomi right? What was it? I thought it had something to do with a cartoon mascot..."

Suika couldn't help but fidget a little under the other girl's gaze. In spite of her faster thinking recently, she wasn't able to process the question until she found herself in front of the game.

"Regina?" She didn't think she knew that name. Maybe she'd heard it and never paid any attention? That was her M.O. until recently... But more importantly, huh!?

It was one thing to not know she was trying to step away from Tsubomi's name, but it was another to think that her friends didn't call her by it.

... Actually, she hadn't really told any of them what she'd chosen yet, had she? They all probably thought she was still going by Tsubomi's name, or by the one she'd given her if not. For this girl to know anything about that was... scary. But was it okay for the first person other than Tsubomi who learned her new name to be some frightening probably-magic girl who wasn't even in the Detention Club?

"Um... yes. I've been called 'Zassou' a lot recently." That was all she could manage as she finally lifted the second light gun from its resting place on the machine.

"Oh, sorry," Suika repeated her apology once more as she looked at the pregame cut-scene, acting out some story she didn't pay attention to. "I didn't actually get any tokens yet..."

"That’s fine, I’ve got it." She slid another coin into the machine, and player two’s gun lit up. "It’s a little much though, isn’t it?" The cutscene was still playing out as Regina balanced the plastic gun in her hand. "Coming up with a name for yourself. It’s one thing to have an alias, but that’s because an alias is a creation. Parents name their children, inventors name their inventions. No one who gives themselves a name is taken seriously." It was hard to tell what the enemies were supposed to be, because Regina was blowing them up as soon as they came on screen. "Just a shower thought. So what’s this about you becoming more empathetic?"

"..." Suika stood in silence a moment as she mulled over Regina's commentary. The redhead must play this game a lot, to already know where the enemies spawned.

"I guess so." She wasn't even trying to shoot; whether she wanted to be competitive or not was irrelevant when the other girl left no openings.

"But isn't that weird? Shouldn't everyone decide their own name?" A single enemy fell as she pulled the gun's fake trigger, half of the duo that had spawned on opposite sides of the screen simultaneously.

"When Tsubomi came into this world, do you think she even had a concept of what a name was?"

"Mm," she began, her mind starting to relax slightly as it focused less on the girl next to her and more on the screen, "I don't really get it, but..."

Wait, how? "... You're magic after all." And not just at the game, it seemed. But she was too old to be a GEM, wasn't she? Well, as long as she wasn't starting a fight, did it matter?

"I knew it had to be obvious, but I didn't think someone outside the Club would notice." A missed shot, milliseconds after Regina had already killed the target, bringing Suika's hit rate to 50%.

"Hmm?" Regina managed an inquisitive grunt between reloads. "I didn’t figure any of this out on my own. I was talking to ‘Michi’ or whatever cover name she used when talking with your lot. I’m surprised the club let her go. She’s definitely going to be an asset once the deadline is up." Finally something that couldn’t be instantly killed came up on screen. It was a boss of sorts, a giant space craft that was beaming down aliens. "Are you taking practice for our fight seriously? Or are you just killing the weekly giga miseria that occasionally shows up?"

Ah, Michi was the reason for this too, huh? Which meant that this girl was Sn-... Ashbringer. That gave the sense of unease she'd felt credence.

"I didn't want to. The others were probably only okay with it because their emotions were running hot. I guess... I sort of get that now."

Suika's 'gun' started firing, her shot count raising exponentially now that there was little chance of wasting them. They began hitting random places, anything that looked like it might be a weak-spot, but the pattern was erratic. From one side of the boss to the other, then back or somewhere else entirely, as if Suika wasn't looking at it the way a brain trained on reading a certain direction would.

"I don't know. I know that I'm not taking it seriously, or wasn't, I guess. I'm not sure if I will be now either. There's way too much to worry about to focus on something that far away."

Finally, she seemed to have found two of them. One of them exploded, leaving only the other for her to target. She wasn't sure which of them had dealt the final shot to the first.

"But I don't think we've gotten any stronger. These Giga Miseria, they're difficult, but they don't seem to help much. If anything, it seems like it's been the other stuff that happened at the same time that's caused the most improvement."

Suika shrugged, her shots still hitting the same spot despite the movement, "Plus, to be honest, this is like the third or fourth time that something has made me think I might be losing my magic. And now that I'm... aware, I guess? I'm thinking, worrying, that the rest of the Club might not really want me around, even if it doesn't go away. So I can't even say for certain that I'll be involved in that fight."

"I guess that when it comes down to it, I just want to make sure nobody loses anything important." Especially Tsubomi, if she's not already gone for good...

"I wasn’t asking for your life’s story." Regina smirked. "But I get it, I think. You have a lot of problems. At the end of the day getting stronger or trying to protect your friends isn’t as important as trying to protect your host, right? That’s typical parasite behavior." She chuckled. "And no host wants to be infested forever. And even if you have Tsubomi in your grasp now, you’re a drain on the club. But that’s a problem that’s much easier to deal with."

"Why are you after it, anyway? You're strong, you have strong allies, especially now that you have Michi if she wasn't already with you... Does beating Miseria eventually leave you at a plateau where you can only get past it by fighting other Magical Girls?"

The second weak point Suika had found broke. She wasn't sure which of them had done that either. "If that was true, the infighting wouldn't make sense. There are plenty of Light Girls in the city you could be fighting instead of some Dark Girls in a small town."

Unable to find any more intact targets, Suika stopped firing for a moment. "Or do you have some grudge with the boss?"

"Who can say?" Regina tossed her gun to Suika, practically forcing her to go akimbo. "Just because you want to trauma dump on me doesn’t mean I’ll reciprocate. Look, I came here to verify what Black Gate told me and see how you guys were doing. I’m only telling you where I’m at because I know staying on track can be hard. Like with a diet." She leaned over Suika. "I don’t want you to think this is anything more than a simple project for me. Hell, I don’t want you to think of me at all. As far in the future as our encounter may seem, I assure you it’s coming. You had a year to train, now you have just over six months. Maybe you’ll be there, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have eroded away as Tsubomi takes her rightful place in her body again. But regardless of who happens to inhabit this body, I’m going to make sure I destroy it. Because as far as I’m concerned, it was there when I issued my challenge. I don’t discriminate."

Suika fumbled the second blaster when it entered her reach, barely catching it before it fell. Even so, she kept listening as she began to play Regina's half of the game.

"..." Silence stood for a moment after Regina gave her threat. Like an anvil in a kiddie pool, Suika's estimation of the girl fell. Was she stupid? If that's what she was going by, half the Club wouldn't be under threat. Maybe not. Maybe she herself was simply misremembering; it wasn't like she had been paying complete attention at the time, or that she hadn't had about half a year of time erode those memories.

Maybe Regina wasn't stupid. In fact, it was entirely unlikely that she was, Suika decided as she realized that the toy pool, miraculously holding the weight of the metal inside it, was floating itself on the waves of the ocean. There were too many things that didn't fit now, in her 'life' and in this situation.

"Mm." The girl gave her trademark reply, turning half of Tsubomi's body away from the game as she did.

Suika stood with one of the blasters still pointed at the screen while the other was held just underneath Regina's jaw. She pulled both triggers once, and the boss on the screen was defeated. How unfortunate that the one in the room with her wasn't. But there would be time to correct that later, she hoped.

A realization came to the forefront of Suika's mind. This new sensation, familiar only in its presence a short time ago... it was still there. Her hands that had been stained by hope hadn't been cleansed of it just yet. They may have gotten covered in grime and dirt since then, but those things could be washed away. She supposed only time would tell if anything remained afterwords.

As the machine's victorious fanfare reached its zenith, she placed both of the toy guns back in their holsters. No, you do. You must. If you still stood by that challenge, you wouldn't be collecting allies. There was only one real conclusion that Suika could come to.

We're missing something.

"Well," Suika finally said, "thank you for the game."

"No need to thank me, I haven’t given you anything of value." With a grin, she folded her arms and walked off. "Untill next time, Zassou. If there is one."

As Regina's footsteps slowly left her range of hearing, Suika looked back at the screen, and a small smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she read the game’s results screen. It seemed that maybe Regina, Ashbringer, wasn't quite invincible after all.

[Player 1: Accuracy 100% | 0 Missed Shots | 10 Damage Taken | A+]
[Player 2: Accuracy 98% | 3 Missed Shots | 70 Damage Taken | B+]

There was no force on the planet that could have kept the rule keeper from crashing into her bed as soon as possible following the Black Gate incident. Unfortunately for Roche, there were several that could drag her out of it come the morning, and the most bothersome of all was the buzzing of her doorbell.

She’d made a valiant effort to ignore it, but upon the third buzz she knew whoever persisted was at least half as stubborn as herself and would be depriving her of any further shuteye. Shrugging on an over-large shirt she’d pinched off a thrift store, she wasn’t even afforded a morning cup of coffee before she opened the door.

“Shuuko?” The name came as her gut reaction, but her eyes narrowed as her brain lurched into motion. With the context provided by the Hotaru personality, she was aware enough to know Shuuko was more a collective name and held little distinction to whichever one was at the wheel of the body. Her eyes noted that the hair was rather different now on the girl.

Red tipped hair tended to stand out as a sudden change in appearance. More than that, though, was the expression on the girl’s face that was at odds with both the abrasive but upfront Hotaru, or what she had come to associate with Sylvia. Which only left…

”Ember. You’re not dragging your feet on this.” There was no point masking the displeasure in Roche’s tone as she turned back into her home, leaving the door open as she ambled into the kitchenette and began working the coffee maker. It would be a requirement if either of them were going to leave without coming to blows. ”Come on in. You already know your way around.”

On the other side of the door, Ember had been starting to wonder if she had made a mistake. She knew that Earthshaker would be exhausted after the fight, so she timed her arrival close to lunch, but upon seeing the door open, she let a sympathetic wince show on her face. Indeed, while Hananami Ryoba looked better than yesterday, she still looked worn-out. Not to mention her tone left no illusions as to what Ember did by accident, nor what has been revealed to the club’s Rulekeeper.

Bowing in apology, the schemer let remorse fill her voice.

”I am truly sorry for disturbing you, Hananami-san. I had hoped you were well-rested and I apologise for waking you up.” She remained that way for a couple of seconds before she took off her shoes and went inside with a quiet “please excuse my intrusion”.

”Before we start… I would like for you to know I am only here to talk and hear you out.” The schemer put as much sincerity into her voice as she could muster. Her blue eyes locked with Ryoba’s, not in an intense way, but with a small, genuine smile. ”I would like to speak about countless topics myself, however, I would like to give you the opportunity to ask about me first. Even if you know my name, there may be other things you wish to know of me.”

The rule keeper snorted as her reputation seemed to get ahead of her, or was it more a case of having a monstrous resting bitch face? Despite herself she was warming to Ember having the good graces not to assume they were on the same basis as she was with Sylvia and Hotaru.

”Mah, if you want to be civil I’ll do the same. I’m not so far gone to try and hide my messes by going on the attack.” Roche said, though in her heart she knew it was only true because she knew she couldn’t get away with it. She could double down on denial but there were too many in a position to dominate her if she valued secrecy above integrity.

Doing Ember a courtesy, the first pour of black tar went into a mug pushed towards her, an aged shaker of sugar slid after it. ”I’m the one sleeping in, so you shouldn’t fret over that. It was a consequence of my own actions.”

Acknowledging the Rulekepeer’s intentions with a nod, Ember followed her into the familiar home, unable to avert her eyes from the small marks of Sylvia that dotted the place. From the mug the protector always used to the sofa Eartshaker and Sylvia sat on when they watched movies, it seemed to be all over the place. A sign of how much they relied on each other. Possibly how much they needed each other if the schemer dug deep enough.

Regardless, she sat down and accepted the coffee, taking it black. She looked at Ryoba, then squared her shoulders before she leaned slightly forward, and, like with Sylvia or Hotaru, Ember listened.

”We didn’t get off on the best foot, and Hotaru wasn't flattering about you either, but it’s not the first complicated relationship I have. Not even half as bad as Suki and I.” A mirthless laugh passed her lips, elbows planted as she rested her chin against folded hands. She was remarkably dispassionate as she spoke of the house of cards she’d cobbled together and Ember’s place in it.

”But Suki has reasons for not blowing the lid on our issues, and I have my reasons not to dissuade anyone’s assumptions about us. Why aren’t you using all that dirt Michi gave you to bury me? I’d have thought Sylvia feelings would be any even stronger reason to drive me away if you thought I wasn’t safe for her..”

”Hananami-san, it was a dream. Or if I look at it another way, a construct crafted by our enemies to use and abuse our weaknesses. Who is to say Michi has not seeded it full of misunderstandings that would cause us to turn against each other, or cause long-term strife within the Detention Club?” Ember’s even voice did not give the impression that she lied. She also looked sorrowful, or perhaps pained as she talked about the experiences they both had within that world.

”Why should I believe what I assume to be true,” her voice shook as she thought of Sylvia, ”over what is actually true? I saw you with a red-head in the closet, that is true. But she also seemed to have dragged you into it. I do not know your relationship with her, nor can I claim to know your intentions.”

Her words seemed heavy. Almost too much so for her to be only talking about that particular incident.

”And even if I wanted to drive you away from Sylvia, it is her choice that matters in the end. She is…” Her hand tightened around the mug. It almost felt like it would crack. One could practically hear the creaking of the handle in the silence that followed.

”She is someone who deserves to be happy.”

”I am no judge, nor jury, nor executioner. I will call you out if I think you have made the wrong decision, but only after I understand what happened and even that might be only what I think.”

Ember was putting a lot of trust on the benefit of the doubt, more so then Roche believed was due for her closeness to Sylvia. There was a lingering feeling this conversation would have gone differently before the dreamscape, and the reluctance came more from Ember’s own introspection then a new lease on life.

”She does deserve to be happy, so I won’t lie to you; That red head was Ashbringer. I’ve met her a handful of times, and I thought I was getting close to uncovering her motives. To understanding her as a person.”

Her mug rang hollow, drained to the last drop as she set it aside. ”I’ve not had a successful social life. If not for the club I’d not have anything outside school. As much as Suki gets around or Willow acts like a lunatic, they at least have…relationships. I….I thought I had feelings for Norika, but she didn’t feel the same. So following that, having this beautiful, mysterious senior seemingly interested in me?”

”I like Sylvia a lot. I want what we have to work out, and I hate myself for feeling like this, but Michi knew…I wanted someone to want me like that.” The Rule Keeper shuddered, gripped by an impetus to purge herself of the demons grasping her. ”My own little dream to have someone I hardly know come on to me. Pathetic, isnt it?”

”No. It is not.” Ember’s firm, yet empathic tone left little room for Ryoba to second-guess herself. While the schemer did flinch internally the moment the club’s enemy was mentioned, she suppressed it, willing herself to listen instead of judging before the fact. And what Ryoba revealed…

Even though the memories were not her own, Ember remembered.

”I will not tell you that you did well or it was correct, but I understand.” Ember let go of her mug, using her free hand to tap herself. ”When there is no one to cling to, when all you have is a void that swallows the sky, the sun and the moon, it is salvation to have someone offer their hand.” Even if that hand is a poisoned chalice. Even if it is your worst enemy. Even if it makes your situation worse.

”I also think that Sylvia likes you. I do not know if it is the same feeling you yearn for, but she wants to spend time with you. And if you want to, I can help you with people outside the Detention Club. Or with the Detention Club.” She meant it. Her hand went back to the mug. She took a sip of coffee before she wrapped up what she had to say.

”It will not be an easy road, but Hananami-san, something has to change. If you stay on this road, you will shatter.”

Roche’s expression grew pinched and the lines framing her tired eyes deepened as Ember abstained from the condemnation she thought she wanted. Just as quick as the black emotion brewed in her gut she smothered it, knowing that there were others who would.

”You aren’t anything like I had expected. Thanks.” The rule keeper huffed, fingers clenching as though she longed to shake the eight-ball for answers once more. ”I hope you can understand that I’m telling you this because I want whatever Sylvia and I have to work out. I don’t want an outright lie to tear us apart like that.”

It was silly to think it, but Roche had seen enough dramas to know that the depths someone went to bury a lie could tarnish everything they’d tried to protect. That wasn’t even getting into the pressure Ashbringer and her friends could put upon her if they tried to blackmail her into aiding their machinations.

There was a relief to voice her dirty secrets, but it was not the relief of a drowned man grasping a thrown life preserver.

It was from letting go of the debris so another could float while she sank.

”As long as I’m rule keeper, I will look out for the interests of the Club. Whether I shatter or not is inconsequential.” Wearing a wan smile, she looked aside, wondering what her reward would be. ”In the dream, it was more than just Ashbringer carrying me off. She confirmed my either wild idea and offered us a peaceful path forward. Knowing Michi’s magic now, it was wildly optimistic, but maybe not everything I dreamed was hopeless.”

”I’d be happy to stay by Sylvia’s side if she would have me.” Till the club settles the score.
Ember suppressed shiver after shiver at hearing Roche. She felt her gut twist into ugly knots, then entanglement spreading through her whole body one vine at a time. Bile built in her mouth, because she knew what she had to do, yet she would hate every second of it.

So she closed her eyes. Lifted her hand to her hair. Reached for her magic. The hair changed colour and grew longer in response before being pulled into an elegant ponytail. Her face shifted, too, not to mention that beneath the eyelids, blue shifted into green. When she opened her eyes, she was a perfect mimicry of Sylvia, down to the mannerisms.

”W-w-what will happen to me if… if you’re gone… Roche…?” Ember’s lips trembled. Her voice sounded quiet, strained. Fear ruled it, of the exact same nature Sylvia carried with her all the time. The grief of inevitable loss infused it. And the
schemer’s machinations gave it crushing weight.

It was foul. Wrong. Yet ultimately necessary, for such was the schemer’s burden.

Even knowing they shared a body and the plurality of bodies was just a creation of Michi’s dreams, seeing a physical change right before her eyes staggered Roche like a physical blow. Her chair slid harshly against the floor, a high shriek of wood that so elegantly reflected her own thoughts as she now stared into Sylvia’s eyes.

It was not how she expected her first proper meeting with Sylvia to go, stripped of the falsehood of a singular Shuuko.

”Please, Sylvia, don’t misunderstand. I’m not trying to nobly sacrifice myself here. I’m looking for a way out of this. All I want is to get us all out of this mess! I don’t want to lose my home, I don’t want to see anyone hurt, but we are outgunned here. I can’t just punch this problem. I’m doing everything I can to talk my way into some kind of compromise, but when it comes out that I have been.”

”Take your pick. Rei? Suki? Kiyo? Hell, Willow. Nyxia even. They’d all be right in coming down on me for holding this in.” She should have been shouting, but the candle was smothered by the anguished expression on Sylvia’s face, drawing her back to those terrified moments on the rooftop when the girl poured out her anguish and all Roche could do was try to smother that pain in her arms.

Knowing she was failing at it, just as she was failing to keep afloat now.

”B-but I don’t want you to die.” Strangely enough, even if the act made her sick to her stomach, Ember felt as though she really was speaking for Sylvia. At least partially. ”C-couldn’t you make up with them if you f-fought?”

How long Ember could keep this up, she had no idea. It was not a difficult task to keep this form of hers, but the deception went against every fibre of her being, not to mention it could backfire catastrophically. She only needed to choose one word poorly or make one wrong gesture and the whole thing would come down like a house of cards. Or at least so she thought until she swore she could feel a spectral hand on her shoulder. It pushed her forward gently, but insistently. Almost as though it were the protector herself.

”I don’t want Roche to get hurt.”

”I don’t want you to get hurt,” Ember echoed the thought, her eyes fixating on the table exactly as Sylvia’s would. ”I don’t want to get hurt either. I…” Fingers interlaced with each other. They turned white as tension built. Lines blurred between acting, reality and souls.

”Even if… even if the gods lie… I don’t want to get hurt. And I don’t want you to get hurt either.”

The strain - the sick feeling - was starting to become unbearable.

”That’s not a call….I can make. I don’t expect the club to all want me dead, but they wouldn’t want me around either. They could just as easily exile me…or they could punish me till I leave on my own. They could even…” Roche reached under her collar, lifting up her magical emblem and aping at crushing it in her palm.

It seemed drastic, but Rei wouldn’t break a single rule of her club if she simply destroyed the source of her power.

However the further Sylvia pressed the more she seemed to hurt herself as much as she was plunging a dagger into Roche’s own heart.

”If I don’t do this, then we are gambling on Rei being able to handle everything arrayed against us, and if what Sink Queen said is true, then we will be powerless to ever leave that shadow. And with Michi on their side, and the GEMS circling around us? I can’t just hope we can fight our way out like the old days. I have to try and talk Ashbringer out of this, because I don’t have it in me to stop any of them if they come for us.”

”We’re powerless. Can’t you see that? If I can’t find another way, all I’m doing is praying someone else feels merciful and takes pity on us.” Roche hissed the word and leaned forward, looming over the surface with a dark mania blazing in her eyes. ”I’ll take on this pain so no one else has to. So you don’t have to.”

By now, the vines almost completely encircled Ember. She could almost feel life and willpower being sucked out of her. The bile in her mouth became mixed with ash, which spread to her lips. It also infiltrated her lungs, causing every deceptive breath to come harder than before, but at least that suited the worried expression she made towards Ryoba, intending to create the picture of a protector who could not form any words.

A dreadfully long moment passed like that.

Then Ember had to let go, her appearance changing back to what it was before. She barely managed to keep herself from emptying her own stomach.

”I’m sorry. I do not think she could take any more.” She closed her eyes, trying to regain her breath, cursing herself for choosing this route. But hopefully, she will have sowed the seed necessary to forge on.

”I will explain later. However, know that all you say, I will relay faithfully to her.” Ember struggled to keep herself together, very apparently so, but she still looked Ryoba dead in the eyes, the schemer once again starting her machinations, trying to look three steps ahead. ”What you said is true. But what if…” She wet her lips.

”What if there was another one willing to bear part of the burden? What if there were many more? I am willing to do so if it means you will not be shattered. Even if you want to talk to Ashbringer to attempt to work it out.”

”And before you ask my reasons, what reason do I need?” She gestured towards their ruined school, letting anger creep into her voice. ”The only thing I need to do is look at the result of a single misstep and while I will not be satisfied until we have gone over all other options, if it means surviving…” A deep breath. A shudder not even the schemer could suppress.

”Then even a deal with an evil god is worth it, as long as we are aware of the consequences.”

Oh there were many reasons why pulling Ember and the other aspects of Shuuko deeper into the mess was a terrible one, and Roche’s mind could flit from one to the next with the haste of a hummingbird. One person could keep a secret, and were it exposed, the consequences would only strike one.

A burden shared was a burden halved, but it also left two lame if they failed to hold the weight.

For all that she had wanted to shield Sylvia, however, there was a part that was just as relieved to know Ember at least would not remain an informed bystander. That part took the reigns and Roche slid back, shoulders sagging in relief.

Even if it risked a schism that could tear apart the club at the absolute worst time, it was a relief not to be alone. ”Thank you, Ember, Hotaru, and Sylvia for your trust. I will do absolutely everything I can to get us through this and what comes after.”

”Even if you can not rely on Sylvia, for she carries burdens already much too heavy, I give my word that I will help you to the best of my ability.” Ember’s breath still came too quickly. She felt the cold sweat travel down her temple, almost as though it wanted to cut gorges into her skin.

”There are as many ways to skin a fox as there are stars in the night sky. If brute force does not work, thievery and trickery will. If that also fails, there are always patterns that could lead us to weaknesses we could exploit. There is no such thing as undefeatable.” Ember spoke with conviction she did not quite feel, but she did want to reach Ryoba. The other girl carried a huge burden on her shoulders and even though it was perhaps uncharacteristic of a dark magical girl to care about another, the schemer did not want to see another shattered husk.

She let silence speak until she no longer felt she was about to faint.

”Is there anything else you wish to know about me? Or perhaps Takae Shuuko?”

The rule keeper accepted the change of topic with a thin quirk of her lips and rose to refill her mug. As unhealthy as it was, she’d already been living off coffee for weeks now. ”Yeah, I do have one for you, Ember. How did you enjoy the movie?”

”It is, unfortunately, not my genre.” Ember refrained from showing her surprise. ”But I am glad you two enjoyed it. It seems to have meant the whole world for Sylvia.” Indeed. Back when they were still working on making Chiaki’s lives as easy as possible, the protector could not experience movies like with Roche. And even if it brought strife to them in the end, it had been one of Ember’s better decisions to push Sylvia forward that day.

”Yeah, not for everybody. Just means you and Hotaru need to pick your own.” Roche shrugged, burying the heavy matters with the ease of familiarity. She nodded over to her old TV and the chest of DVDs. ”How about we take a look and get some ideas before you head out?”

”There are, unfortunately, two more matters to tend to before I can accept that offer.” Ember put deliberate weight into her voice. ”Firstly, I would like to speak on the matter of Suki. She told me something that has been weighing on me since I talked with her. There is no easy way to say it, Hananami-san.” She locked her blue eyes with Roche’s greens.

”She claimed you beat her. Is that true?” There was no accusation in Ember’s voice. Instead, she leaned slightly forward, eager to listen once more.

Between that lack of antagonism and their earlier promise, Roche kept herself from responding with hostility. Her shoulders tensed and it was with visible effort she met Ember’s eyes.

”From Suki’s perspective? Yes, I beat her till she couldn’t get up. What she can’t remember is losing control and attacking me.” Having already confessed greater sins, the rest came loose with little struggle. ”Did you see her when the GEMS took Tsubomi? It wasn’t the first time she slipped or anywhere near the worst.”

”The only reason I’m talking to you now is because I kept swinging until she stopped trying to eat me. And for that, I let everyone think I was the monster she painted me as, because she’d have nothing if I had spoken up.”

No surprise coloured Ember’s face given their earlier conversation, for the more she listened, the more she realised just how much importance Ryoba gave to the continued existence of the club, not to mention the lives of her friends. In a way, she behaved almost as though she were a light girl, shielding others from the consequences of their mistakes so they too, could have a home. Like a more noble Kiyo who did not make plans.

There was merit to it. It also seemed to have served the detention club well. It was also a relief to know there was more to the story than Ember initially assumed, so she let her shoulders down, showing the relief to the other Dark Magical Girl.

”Were there no other witnesses as to what happened? For the record, I am not attempting to accuse you of lying. If she attacked you like that, you were well in your right to defend yourself.” She let a note of sympathy into her voice to show she understood the decision. Both ‘beating up’ Suki and Ryoba keeping the details of the confrontation to herself.

”Oh you can accuse me of anything you like in that regard. Not even Suki can remember her claws digging under my skin, and I’d ask you not to dispel her narrative either, because I was the only witness. If Kiyo had caught sight of it she’d have blown the whistle ages ago. There’s enough time between then and now that it wouldn’t ruin Suki, but we don’t need to plant any more seeds of mistrust.”

It was a familiar weight to carry, and one she wouldn’t set down anytime soon with how good Suki was at evading her. She’d simply accepted she’d be Suki’s boogeyman till she decided to act differently.

”I wouldn’t hit Sylvia, even without her history. I’m not asking you to take that on faith, but I’m saying that because she has the right to extra assurances.”

”This is not an issue of you hitting Sylvia or worse, Hananami-san, though I admit the idea has entered my mind. However, I know you would not be so foolish as to do something along those lines, especially now that you are aware of what Takae Shuuko is.” Ember winced as she heard the rulekeeper degrade herself. A part of her was tempted to reach out to her physically, to reassure her through touch that there was someone else here, who could listen. It showed in a miniscule twitch of her shoulder.

”It is more of an issue of the previous topic. I do think keeping it to yourself was the right idea when it comes to the Detention Club, however, when it comes to Suki herself, it will land her in danger. Not to mention the implications this has for your relationship with Sylvia.”

”Suki conveyed to me that she wished to give you another chance if you bring her and Nyxia closer, however, I am wondering if I should give you that chance regarding the most vulnerable of us - Takae Shuuko. If you are so willing to shoulder burdens, keep secrets, then what will ensure that you will make a stand for what is right when it comes to Sylvia? Both for her and against her.” The schemer’s voice turned serious, though it did not sound accusatory, especially with how she touched her fingertips to Ryoba’s. She admonished and supported at the same time.

”Hananami-san. I do have faith in you.” She did not lie. Ember had known the Rulekeeper for some time. Even if she hid secrets, they ate away at her and the desire to do so came from a place she did not quite understand yet, but Ryoba definitely did not want to harm others or do evil. ”I only want you to see that even when it comes to the faults of others, silence is not the only answer. We are Dark Magical Girls bound together by fragile tethers, yet at a certain point, the interest of the self is also the interest of the group.”

She sounded like someone who learned a very harsh lesson that still stung.

”Ember, as much as I may look cracked, it wasn’t as though informing Suki hadn’t occurred to me. You may have noticed she’s been extremely evasive of me for some time now, till just recently in fact. But even if she hadn’t, would you expect her to accept that, from her perspective, her abuser told her she had it coming?”

Sylvia would have understood that point intrinsically, reminding Roche that for all that they shared a body, Ember was her own person with her own preconceptions and biases. Not that Roche had any reason to doubt, but it was in the little things that the absurdity of their reality cemented themselves before her eyes.

Her voice hardened in the face of Ember’s admonishment, taking the words poorly. ”You are mistaking silence for inaction. Failures for an absence of effort. I have been running down every lead and avenue, and I’ve not come out unscathed for it. If there is anything Sylvia needs more than my company, she will have it, but I’m also not going to smother her completely out of my own self interest.”

So that was the piece Ember had been missing. As well as another reminder that she did not know. She should have phrased her statement as a question, as curiosity instead of the hostility she just showed. Bygones were bygones, however. The best thing she could do was to withdraw her hand, then lower her head.

”I apologise. My judgement of the situation was wrong and I should not have tried to impose it on you.” She looked at the table in front of her, a very close reminder of Sylvia, except it did not come with the usual shrinking back. It came across more as a way to buy herself time to think along with a show of remorse, letting the schemer recover as she considered what to say.

”Please understand that Sylvia is… The only thing I will say right now is I do not think I have done as right by her as I could have.” Pain joined hands with regret to colour her voice, sounding as though she were both apologising for the current situation as well as what happened earlier. ”You saw that she could only talk to you for but a moment and I assume partial responsibility for that. The other, more substantial part goes to the nightmare that Michi wove.” She looked up at Ryoba, lips pressed into a thin line. Colour draining from her face.

”So please do the best for her even when I can not.”

The rule keeper allowed the change in topic, though it wasn’t eluding her that Ember was making a habit. She shifted tact like a reed in the wind, yet unerringly it all came back to her concern for Sylvia.

”None of us can claim to have done well by her. Even after learning there was more then just one Shuuko, I’ve been pulled in too many directions to really help out.”

Case in point. ”I was too caught up in my own feelings to reach out to her after the nightmare. Is there anything I can do for her now?

For the first time since their conversation started, Ember looked away, past Ryoba’s head. She considered something for several moments, the gears almost audibly turning in her head before her focus returned to the matters at hand.

”Yes. But I would be nothing short of a hypocrite if I asked for your help right this moment, when you already shoulder so much. Especially after I offered to look out for you and extended my own aid regarding Ashbringer or any other concerns you have.” No dishonesty entered her voice and Ryoba could likely tell she was not one hundred percent comfortable with what she said.

”At the same time, you might not be able to talk to her for a long time if you did not extend your help. I legitimately do not mean as a threat or as a way to keep you away from someone you wish to cherish,” a note of pain entered Ember’s voice when she spoke about that, ”but rather, as a way for you to account for it. I will not stop trying to help Sylvia recover, but I have spent everything I have for her sake and it did not work.” Frustration also surfaced, mixing together with grief in such amounts that it might have been able to create a lesser Miseria by itself. Ember looked genuinely torn between asking more of someone who already burned through herself at a dangerous rate, shouldering so much what should not be hers to shoulder alone; and between subjecting Sylvia more of whatever she was going through right now.

Ember’s response did nothing to reassure Roche and the Rule Keeper strode forward, clapping a hand to the girl’s shoulder. Unlike with Sylvia she didn’t think the action would evoke primal terror, her grip firm without the intent to harm.

”If I sacrifice Sylvia to save the club, I’ve saved nothing. I will make time to reach out to her if you can get me the opportunity.” Her chest swelled as though she could bury the fatigue under a rush of air filling her lungs. ”Hotaru wasn’t an unbiased source, but she made it clear you three are deeply entangled. That familiarity makes it hard to accept help from another because there’s just as much self interest as their is empathy.”

”You must have been telling Sylvia she wasn’t a…bad girl, for years now, but she’s never listened. Let someone else crack that shell of hers so she can accept she’s worth more than those monsters thought of you all.”

Ember met Ryoba's eyes with her own, wavering, deep blue gaze that reflected a turbulent ocean.

”I would be doing something I have never done before. I do not know what consequences there will be.” Her lips felt dry. ”I do not want to make decisions for you. I am also concerned for you.” Her voice quivered. ”Even knowing all that, are you sure?”

”I am.” Roche was never one to hesitate, letting her hand return to her side as she rolled her shoulders in anticipation of something novel. ”Whatever comes is a consequence we’ll both have to carry, but it’ll be a burden halved. You don’t strike me as someone who will shirk that responsibility, either.”

Silence greeted Ryoba’s resolve. The Detention Club’s Rulekeeper could practically see the gears turning in Ember’s head. The schemer’s brow creased and her face took on a serious, focused expression as she fought with her desire to protect Ryoba exactly as she vowed to protect Sylvia. Even if it meant shielding them from the consequences of their own decisions, of actions that could result in an unfavourable outcome. Indeed, a deeply rooted, selfish part of her wanted to refuse anyways, because she knew better.

Because that was her role as the schemer.

Yet this was the exact thing that failed Sylvia. The very idea that was supposed to protect the protector caused her to fall to despair, then almost shatter into thousands of pieces when she was at her lowest. Were it not for the presence of people she got to know outside of Ember and Hotaru, the schemer did not know if she would have survived at all.

A heavy sigh left Ember’s lips. Her decision did not come easily.

”I might carry regret and grief for the rest of my life if I make any of the choices before me.” She could not keep the strain out of her voice. ”I know that I am the one who offered… but there are so many possible catastrophic outcomes that I do not know if I can carry through with what I had in mind.” Her lips and throat felt like a desert of needles.

”No… no. You are… right.” She grit her teeth. ”There can be no deeper regret than not taking the chance. So. Are you ready to see if you can make a stand where I failed, Hananami-san?” She extended a hand towards Ryoba, pretending that it was not shaking like a leaf in a tempest.

The offer had been made without deceit or artifice, and yet Roche wasn’t certain it would be accepted till the very moment the hand was offered. It almost seemed a cruel twist of fate that the very intimacy and closeness she’d pined for was now offered only at the darkest point in Sylvia’s already tragic life.

Though exploring the mind and soul of another was a hair beyond intimacy, especially when it was for the sake of Sylvia’s very existence.

”I’m ready as I can be, Ember-San.” Sleep deprived, over caffeinated, and with a looming meeting with Suki later in the day; There likely wasn’t another time they’d get a crack at it before things heated up in the city. ”And, thanks for trusting me on this.”

”If anything, I am the one who owes you more than I can possibly repay.” Ember let the hand slip into hers. Reaching for her magic, she opened herself up as much as possible towards the Rulekeeper, a red aura of swirling ashes and cinders blooming around her. It crackled like a roaring fireplace as she attempted to lead Roche into the mental nexus of Takae Shuuko, her every try a blaze of magic that drove the air out of her both physically and metaphysically

Gold along with a pale, silverish blue flashes danced at their point of contact. Beads of sweat poured down Ember’s brow in doves between her breaths. She stretched herself to the limit, then some more as she tried to pull and pull and pull…

And was met with failure after failure.

Her magic started to run out. Likewise, she could feel the severe drain she imposed on Roche, the essence of whom impacted against hers in an attempt to glimpse a world that was meant for only the four three Shuukos. It caused Ember’s vision to flicker constantly, which was nothing compared to the searing pain blooming across her entire being. Like being stabbed all over the place repeatedly, knives twisting inside the wounds, then leaving hooks that kept shifting beneath the recovered skin.

The crack of a lightning echoed between them. Ember’s aura started to turn into a cloud of silverish blue prayer beads. Her lips pressed together in agony and then she could not take it anymore, collapsing into a heaving, messy heap of a woman along with her magic.

Roche had experienced paranormal slips, moments when her understanding of reality was proven laughably inadequate amidst flashes of maddening insight. Satan and her babbling was the most recent exposure, but even the Giga Miseria were a lasting reminder the world was baster and more terrifying then they should ever aspire to know.

That they were magical girls should have been proof enough of the Soul, but she’d not tried to touch upon that so literally and bereft of the veneer of mortal flesh. Ember tried, and seeing her drop to the floor was a telling example of the cost of that effort. Her own extremities tingled, a bloodless chill nipping at her bones as her pulse raced rabbit quick.

”It…looks to me, that you alone can’t open a door.” Roche puffed, steadying herself against a chair. Flashes of color she was growing to associate with each Shuuko had swirled before, seared into her retinas while her fingers pressed to her temple.

”If it’s even possible to begin with, it looks like we need Hotaru and….Was there another?” She questioned, uncertain where metaphor and madness met in such liminal spaces.

Despite the exhaustion that claimed her, Ember still managed to raise her head in a flash and look at Ryoba with wide eyes.

”Another…? What did you see?” Even if she wanted to, she could not hide the alarm in her voice. Of course, she always kept Chiaki in mind, but the three of them had agreed that they would keep her safe until the world was sa-

The three of them had agreed.

They did not agree anymore.

What doubts she harbored were dashed by Ember’s response. She frowned, looking down as she slid into the chair she balanced upon.

”It’s what I didn’t see. I saw three colors, but…it was like there was a space for another. When you look at the night sky outside the city, a patch without stars stands out. Sounds like you already expected that, though.”

Roche was in no position to judge but it seemed to her that bearing your soul while hiding a quarter of it was a prospect doomed to blow up in their faces. ”Does everyone agree with helping Sylvia?”

Instead of answering, Ember let her head fall back, right onto the table, because what Ryoba said should not be possible. And yet the Rulekeeper had no reason to lie, especially not when both the Detention Club’s integrity along with the support of Ember and Sylvia was on the line. So even though Chiaki never woke up, her vote still counted?! Would they even be able to stitch Sylvia together if that was true? There had to be a better answer.

”I don’t know.” The terror in her voice rang clear. ”If what I understand is true… Hananami-san…” Ember raised her head again to look her in the eyes. ”I require time and I can not exactly say how much of it. Until I get to the bottom of this, the best I can do for Sylvia is to leave a body by your side, to see if you can get through to her.” She all but rattled off what she had to say as she tried to collect herself but-

How did Chiaki wake up? When did she wake up? And why did she never try to talk to them? Whatever the answers were, they had implications for Hotaru, Sylvia, herself and potentially, the rest of the Detention Club.

The Rule Keeper considered the compromise before meeting it with a stiff nod. ”If there’s no way to hasten this, then that’s acceptable. She can take my bed and I’ll take the couch. Don’t need Suki getting any ideas if she drops by later.”

She carded a hand through her hair, leaning back till the front feet just barely lifted from the ground. ”We were hoping to be direct, but she already spoke to us briefly a few minutes ago. She’ll just come back on her own time, and I’ll be honest with her.”

”Word of advice? You need to discard those old frameworks you built for yourself. It sounds like you've been trying to put everything back together as it was, but Michi was a natural disaster for everyone, Sylvia most of all. You can’t put the knick knacks back on the shelf after the twister’s torn down the house. You’ll wind up worse off if you can’t accept they’ve changed, or that you have either.”

The schemer had to do her utmost to not wince when Sylvia was brought up. She tried her best to maintain a panicked appearance instead of a guilty one, but she was not exactly in the best state of mind right now. Especially not after the revelation she had regarding the fourth person they shared magic with. Perhaps Ryoba caught it. Perhaps she did not.

What the Rulekeeper definitely caught, however, was Ember stretching her magic to teleport one of the Shuuko bodies beside herself. Cold sweat broke out on her brow again, even from this minor action - the Rulekeeper had no doubt seen how she switched and teleported around without even the slightest efforts - a further sign of her exhaustion. Which was only made worse as she reached for something profound that rippled into existence as a green mote of light. Though it was tiny, even from afar, Ryoba could sense the metaphysical weight of what Ember carried. Marred by countless fractures on the surface, it seemed more vulnerable than ever and upon looking at it, one could almost see the ghost of Sylvia resting in it; curled up and crying.

The mote of light entered the body, which then started to breathe. Ember wiped off her sweat.

”I will make sure to keep your advice in mind. I…” She hesitated. Her eyes wavered. ”I do not wish to disturb the two of you. I am sure you have much to say to her, especially about things I should not be privy to.” A part of her wanted to take the offer to stay. To forget about the First of them, to bury memories that should have died a long time ago, beneath a movie. To leave behind Grandmother and Grandfather, with all the evil in their hearts. Just like they used to do when they went to the movies with Chiaki. But alas, that would be repeating the past.

She still saw before her eyes, Sylvia’s body criss-crossed by ribbons of green light, helpless before the hell that Michi unleashed. And she promised herself: Never again.

What was going unsaid was beginning to lay heavy upon her brows, and Roche felt the pricklings of curiosity of what else Ember could be hiding after revealing so much. A tripartite Shuuko seemed secret enough, but layer by layer and more emerged.

But none of those questions would draw near to her lips as Ember followed through on drawing out a body for her. One that looked so very much like the emerald spark Ember cradled in her hands, the Rule Keeper’s magical senses aghast at feeling the brush of Sylvia’s soul so close she needed only reach out to brush upon it.

So fragile that the act of doing so would likely shatter her.

The familiar well of roiled pitch churned at the sight, feeling for the first time grateful to have left Michi to Ashbringer. Now she wasn’t some lost pet under Hizuki’s protection, and anything that followed was simply the way of things.

”I’ll do my best to look after her.” Roche swallowed back the bile in her throat, taking Sylvia in her arms as though she were Sleeping Beauty, head rested upon her shoulder without a hint of wakefulness.

Ember left her, gripped with purpose and a new direction to direct her energies, while Roche returned to her room and tucked the body into bed. It hadn’t seen much use so the sheets weren’t ripe, though she’d make a note to change them out sooner rather than later.

Carrying in a chair, the rule keeper settled facing the bed, hands clasped before her as she sagged under newfound weight.

Then she put on a smile and spoke warmly to her friend. “I found a recipe I’d think you’d enjoy.”

And for a time, Roche allowed herself to weave a pleasant dream of what Sylvia had to return to, if only she’d see past the curtain of tears.

Roche was a busy girl. Between her relationship, managing both the track club and detention club, and figuring out how to contend with the looming threat of both Ashbringer and the GEMS was enough to leave anyone feeling drained. When she did have a moment to herself, it was often squandered thinking about how to handle all the other problems she had on her plate. At present, she was laying on her bed looking at the ceiling.

There was a knock on her apartment door. One would forgive Roche for acting with caution. There was no telling who it could be, and yet it wouldn’t do to leave the thing unanswered. Fortunately, her door did come with a door viewer. Likely a holdover from whoever lived here last. When Roche looked through it, she could see Suki’s distorted eye with just enough other details to know it was her.

Swallowing a sigh of resignation that her home was growing increasingly frequented by others, Roche wasted no time in opening the door. Though she’d slept like the dead following the Giga Miseria’s fall, it was only a drop in the bucket compared to what she’d lost in her worrying and the building signs of fatigue only sharpened the look she sent at Suki.

"I half expected you to forget this place. Come on in." Beckoning Suki to follow after she came to a well used coffee maker, the smell of brew heavy in the air and it was clear at a glance that it wasn’t the first pot she’d had brewing that morning. She poured out two mugs and favored Suki with a glance over the rim.

"You tired of running away, or is this about Michi?"

The delinquent hadn’t stepped past the threshold of the door. While Suki was the one to knock, seemingly of her own volition, her brow was stitched together. "Avoiding you isn’t the same as running away." She eyed the cup of coffee. "And I don’t plan on staying long." Her preferred method of caffeine acquisition was from soft drinks anyway. "Why would I talk to you about me-chi?"

"Suki, you’re…Whatever." Roche sagged, deciding she’d drink both if Suki was going to stand in the doorway. And seeing as she was rather distracted on that dream lunch of their’s, Roche wasn't going to offer up anything else damning. "Forget it."

"Yea, let’s do that." Suki placed her hands on her hips. "I wish I could flush all of that out of my head, but some things can’t be drunk away."

"Look, I promise I won’t touch you or raise my voice. Don’t have much of a voice to shout with anyhow, so tell me what you’re here for. There’s a dozen things I can point to so narrow it down for me."

"Well it’s funny you should mention that. Not touching me that is." She sighed. "I think out of everyone in this club, I like you the least. Hopefully that’s not too surprising." Her face softened. "But if we’re going to function as a team, the entire detention club. We all need to learn to work together. That means that you and I need to, you know, move past what happened. And I’m willing to make an effort to do that, but it’s not free." She pretended to hold a giant cannon and fired it. "You need to help someone else extend me the olive branch. Especially since it was at least seventy percent your fault."

The rule keeper gave a slow blink past her half drained mug, enraptured by the audacity of the girl in her doorway.

"Let’s not quibble on fault here. You aren’t my least favorite in the club, to be clear. Now, whose skirt are you trying to get under that you think you need my help?"

Suki sighed, rubbed the back of her head, and placed a closed fist on the frame of the door. "Yea, this was kind of a stupid idea." She stepped out of the doorway and made her way down the hall.

"Damn it- Hold on!" Roche bit out, nearly vaulting her counter to hasten after Suki. Bare feet slapped against the hall as she reached out and grasped Suki’s shoulder to halt her flight.

"You seem to love dishing out the teasing but can’t take a word of it back. Fine, I’m sorry for being snide. Tell me what you want, Suki." Her hand lingered for a moment longer before withdrawing to her side, the tanned girl’s expression conflicted out in the open halls.

Suki looked at her shoulder, then to Roche, before turning around to face her. "You uh, kinda just did what you said you weren’t gunna do." If Suki's delivery hadn’t been so deadpan, Roche might have suspected she was joking. But despite her eccentricities, it seemed like she was trying to be serious. "Anyway, it’s fine. I thought it was obvious, but I’m talking about Nyxia. She told me to give you what for and ever since she’s had it out for me. Meanwhile the two of you get along swimmingly." She rubbed her chin. "I was thinking we could go to the arcade together, you know, as an outing. Not a date, I don’t think any of us are interested in dating each other." She stressed that point. "But uh, yea, thought the three of us could go to the arcade. There’s a game or two I’d like to play again, and Sunshine doesn’t have the reflexes for fighters. Think you could try to get Nix on board?"

Having the decency to be abashed at so quickly going back on her word, Roche leaned against the wall and made a show of considering Suki’s request. The animosity Nyxia had was rather potent, and Suki had herself to blame considering the public fondling she gave Earthshaker before Nyxia’s own eyes.

"I can do it, though we’ll have to stay transformed. She’s not gonna be able to enjoy the arcade near as well in a wheelchair."

Not strictly a lie, but Roche didn’t think Norika would be willing even with Roche vouching for her. "She’d probably get a kick out of anything with light guns, but if it’s all of us she’d at least try the fighters."

Her brows furrowed, snowy hair crinkling with her words. "Is that all you want to bury whatever this is between us?"

"We need to be stronger." Suki folded her arms. "And things will work out better for us if we all work together. If you can manage that, then yea, I’m willing to leave the past in the past."

That…was a mature outlook coming from Suki. Roche would almost think she was charmed by someone if not for the rather obvious source of personal growth.

"Yeah, we will be. I hope Tsubomi knows how lucky she is to have you in her corner." With everything happening to their club’s resident pharmaceutical provider, it was no wonder Suki had a fire lit under her to improve. "I’ll get Nyxia on board, though we might need to find an arcade after hours."

"The one Sunshine and I go to is open crazy late, so that shouldn’t be a problem." She shoved her hands into her pockets. "Give me a ring when you’ve made some progress."

This time Roche let her depart in peace, already turning back to her open apartment. "Sure, won’t be long."

---

After a long day came the start of a Magical Girl’s work shift, the sun since set at her back as Earthshaker perched on the sill of Norika’s window and tapped gingerly on the glass.

She’d texted ahead and gave a time, not wanting to impose on the girl at her most vulnerable. Her face tensed, one arm curling over a tender rib as her skin carrier lingering bruises from their battle, Kicking my own ass certainly worked wonders, but damn if it isn’t slow to heal.

After a moment, Earthshaker would notice a subtle sign of movement in the darkened room, followed by a flash of teal light. A moment after that, and Nyxia was standing in front of the window.

"Thanks for not knocking too loudly," she told the Rule Keeper as she opened the window. "This thing just got replaced yesterday, and my parents would really start to get suspicious if it was shattered twice in less than a month." As it was, the story of possible burglars causing the first break-in had only been so easily accepted thanks to the servant staff having been knocked unconscious as well, although the fact that nothing had actually been stolen was as perplexing as it was relieving.

"I probably shouldn’t have been so reckless," the Neon Tempest conceded with a frown. "But I also couldn’t waste time with all those damn shadow monkeys everywhere… You know those fuckers actually invaded my house?"

"I’d take a vow of silence if it let me dodge your family." Earthshaker said softly, slipping into the familiar room, still wary even if no one could see or hear them. The carpets were plush and the floor solid, leaving them secure unless they started rearranging furniture.

"They came here? What was Black Gate playing at…" The reasoning eluded her, yet it was clear Black Gate’s actions brought the club together intentionally, and if she hadn’t done so then the battle with the Giga Miseria would have cost her more then aches and bruises.

"They were all over the whole damn city," Nyxia clarified. "And they weren’t alone. There was also a… a magical boy fighting them," she added. "And I think he might be my new tutor, who’s also a junior fucking detective, or some shit…"

Grunting as she slid that onto the back burner, the Rule Keeper crossed her arms to the Neon Tempest with her full attention.

"Nyxia, I’m going to ask you for a favor. If anything happens or you aren’t comfortable we can call it off, but it would mean a lot if you did this." Her chest swelled, drawing in a breath to steady herself. "Would you go to the arcade with me and Oros?"

Nyxia’s eyes widened, then narrowed. "Why? So she can perv on the two of us?" she asked skeptically.

Wincing in the face of Nyxia’s response, Roche exhaled softly. "Look, you got a terrible first impression of her, but I was also a complete bitch to start with. I’m not asking you to forget everything she’s done and said, but she…she genuinely cares for everyone in the club, and she wants to make things up to you. So, just the three of us, enjoying some late night arcade games. Worst case? She thrashes us at King of Fighters and we blow off steam stomping Miseria."

Nyxia was silent for a moment before sighing. "Fine… I guess I can give her a second chance," the Neon Tempest relented. "But if she tries to fuck with me, she’s gonna fucking regret it."

"She won’t. She really does want a second chance for you to get to know her. All I ask is you give her a chance and not let any….unease between me and her color your perceptions. The both of us are burying the hatchet, so to speak." Roche relented, hoping Nyxia would maintain her disinterest and not dig too deep into that.

…

…

…

The old arcade was partially closed late at night. Some of the older games were in locked up parts of the establishment, but the wonderful part about vending machines and arcade cabinets was that they didn’t need to be manned to function. You could drop by at the dead of night, have a soda, and play games until morning. Hibusa town may have been cursed, but it still managed a small town atmosphere. There was a camera set up to keep everyone honest with no other people around. Suki doubted the cameras even worked.

Suki didn’t have a lot of clothes, but today she was as dressed to the nines as she could possibly be. She was wearing her favorite clothes along with a tall, well-used jacket. It satisfied the requirements for the ten foot rule, but closer inspection would reveal it was fraying at the edges and had some patchwork done under the armpits. But Suki liked it because it was black with a plaid lining. Her hand was systematically reaching into her pocket for hundred yen notes to feed into an arcade machine. With each note that went in, the machine would rumble, flash some lights, and spit out an arcade token to play games. That was another thing Suki liked about this place; it was cheap.

After stocking up, she stepped outside and waited for the others to show up. Her heels bounced on the pavement as she hummed a tune to herself.

Earthshaker blinked from a rooftop across the street, peering down to see Suki wasn’t transformed, chain smoking, or looking like she was fresh out of bed. She hadn’t doubted Suki’s intention, perse, but she hadn’t expected her to put forth more effort than she did for a date.

Yet what caused her to look back at Nyxia with some worry was that it was Suki, and not Oros the Joyful.

"Would you be up for doing this as Norika?" Roche asked, stepping lightly off the ledge and alighting softly on the opposite sidewalk to Suki, her magical state fading to show she’d deigned to wear jeans and a puffer jacket to brace against the evening’s chill.

"I hope that’s your idea of a joke," Nyxia hissed as she landed beside Roche. "I don’t even want that sick freak to know my real name, let alone what I actually look like. Besides," she added with an annoyed scowl as she aggressively pointed her thumb at where Suki was standing. "I can barely move around without needing a cane or wheelchair when I’m like that. There’s no way in hell I’d leave myself so vulnerable with her nearby. I’m already gonna have nightmares just thinking about what kinda fucked up shit she’d try to pull…"

Not perfect but the city already had enough ghost stories. Two girls at an arcade with a ghostly third player was hardly noteworthy. "She wouldn’t do anything, and I wouldn’t let anyone else touch the wheelchair, but this is good too. Just means you can kick our butts at DDR."

Crossing over with a glance for late night traffic, she greeted Suki with a raised hand. "Yo. Hope you weren’t waiting long?"

"Nope!" Suki looked between Roche and Nyxia. First moving her entire body to look at them both, then shifting her eyes side to side. "So! The arcade here uses tokens. I uh, I bought a few in advance." She held out two little pouches. "There’s uh, if you keep ‘em in little bags, they’re harder to lose if you don’t have pockets, or your pockets have holes in them. So uh, here’s yours." She held one out for Roche and lowered it into her hand. "And uh, this one, is, yours." Suki waited patiently for Nyxia to reach out her hand, at which point she very slowly held out her token bag. She handled it with the amount of care one would a cherished heirloom or an unstable compound. Then she dropped the bag from several inches up.

For a moment, Nyxia just stared at the bag in her hand, then, forcing herself to look back up at Suki’s distinctly unappealing visage she said, "Thanks…" in an emotionless deadpan.

"Okay! That should keep us going for a while!" Suki turned around to enter the arcade. "So what does everyone like to play?"

"Something violent," Nyxia replied, still in that same flat deadpan she’d used to voice her appreciation for the coin bag.

"Perfect, I think I can see Time Crisis 2 inside." Roche swept in, gingerly guiding Nyxia inside with a hand on her shoulder as the other palmed her bag appreciatively. It was violent, flashy, involved a weapon in hand, and most importantly, was 2 player. "We’ve got enough coins for enough retries. You two can start and we can rotate out as people run out of lives."

Suki had opened her mouth to voice what she wanted to play, but her mouth just kind of hung open as Roche ushered Nyxia in front of the machine. As she took in the machine, her mouth closed slowly. "I haven’t even played Time Crisis One, I hope I understand the plot."

That was a funny joke, of course. Time Crisis 2 was a game Suki had played before. Suki had played lots of light gun games, as Tsubomi enjoyed playing them because they let her practice her aim. Something that made Time Crisis 2 different from a lot of light gun games was the cover mechanic. There was a peddle that the player could press with their foot to take cover. This was important to dodge rockets, but also worked to reload your weapon. Despite its age, there was also a lot of attention to detail. Both players had different screens, and they didn’t always show the same thing. Sometimes bosses would drift between the players, or fire on one player while leaving an opening for the other. But the reason why Suki liked it was because of how over the top it was. Especially the voice acting.

Though this game would be a lot different than the others she played because of who Suki was playing with. The cabinet for Time Crisis 2 was about as wide as two normal game cabinets shoved together. It was riveting because she never thought she’d get to stand this close to Nyxia. It was also harrowing, as the giant mega obliterator couldn’t exactly be folded up and put away. That, and Suki knew that Nyxia wouldn’t hesitate to use it. She hadn’t planned on touching Nyxia of course, but an accidental elbow or shoulder rub wasn’t impossible at this range.

Suki reached for her light gun, but hesitated. "Did you want to be player one or two? Player one gets a blue gun." And a red cabinet. The colors were reversed for player two.

"I don’t really care," Nyxia replied with a dismissive shrug. In truth, she’d never had much practice with light gun games, but she figured her skill with her precious Omega Obliterator, coupled with the superhuman reflexes of her magical girl form, would more than make up for her inexperience. And it would certainly allow her to perform better than a walking disaster area like the untransformed Suki. "Which one would you prefer?"

"You want me to pick!?" Her voice almost squeaked. She placed a hand on her chest and looked between the two guns. "I think I’ll be player two. Red’s my color." Suki drew out the red gun and examined it. Then, without looking, she chucked a token into the machine. "Do you guys play many arcade games?"

Nyxia rolled her eyes in response to Suki’s enthusiasm. "Not really," she replied in a disinterested tone. "Killing Miseria is a lot more enjoyable than any video game."

"I don’t usually have the time or money for them. There usually better with groups, anyhow." Roche chipped in, hovering to the side, one eye on the screen as the other kept track of the two playing. "Considering how open this place is at the dead of night, we could try bringing more of the club along."

Hanging out like that definitely felt like Light Girl behavior, but they did have Hizuki now so it could fly with the others.

"It could get in the way of miseria hunting though…" For dark magical girls, the night was the time to hunt. The only reason Suki had offered to play at this hour was because Roche made it sound like it worked better for Nyxia. "So uh, what have you guys been doing for fun then?" The first group of enemies started to show up. "I mean, you guys can’t just hunt miseria all the time, right?"

"What’s wrong with just hunting Miseria?" Nyxia inquired pointedly as she blasted several enemies in quick succession before ducking to reload, her aim and timing impeccable. "There’s nothing more satisfying than watching things that should never exist to begin with die screaming."

"Fun and I have a distant relationship, but I’ve been working on my cooking. And Nyxia has a….good book collection." The Rule Keeper winced, thinking that the game may have been too easy for Nyxia to properly enjoy, but if nothing else she wasn’t being reserved with her words.

Though she’d be damned before suggesting a shared cooking lesson after Suki’s attempt tried to kill the club.

"It’s not really possible to?" Suki took her time reloading. Games like this were made for human reflexes, and there really wasn’t much for Suki to shoot with Nyxia around. "I mean sure, now there might be miseria out, but they don’t come out earlier in the morning, or mid day, or even in the evening. Ya kinda need something to offset your time, right?" Normally Suki wouldn’t take her eyes off the screen, but with so few targets, it was relatively safe to look at Nyxia. "So what do you do when there’s nothing to kill?"

"I try to endure my shitty life while I wait until there is something," Nyxia bit back, her mouth twisted into an annoyed scowl. "Killing Miseria is the only thing I live for." There was also, of course, the reason why she killed them, but the Neon Tempest wasn’t about to tell Suki, of all people, something as deeply personal as that.

The delinquent stared at Nyxia a moment longer, blinked, and then returned her eyes to her own screen in time to shoot a hidden enemy. "A good book collection, you say?" Suki pivoted the conversation back to Roche, but still gave Nyxia glances on occasion.

…

…

…

In just over forty minutes, NeoDyne Industries’s evil plan had been thwarted. Time Crisis’s later levels were too hectic to talk much, which was further discouraged by Nyxia’s sour attitude and Suki’s unwillingness to prod her much more than she already had.

"I guess that was kinda fun," Nyxia conceded as she placed her gun back in its "holster."

"I don’t think I’ve ever won with such a low score." Suki was good at Time Crisis 2, but even she needed to use credits to get through the harder levels. She doubted she’d be able to beat Nyxia’s score as herself. That was probably going to top the leaderboards for a while. "Sorry you didn’t get to play Roche! Nyxia was way too good at killing everything, heh!" She sighed. "Um, so since Roche didn’t get to play anything, and we finished faster than I thought we would…" She pivoted to Roche. "Did you wanna play a match of Gearmantic Hearts with me? Then we can go hunt some miseria or something."

Even Roche was impressed with them clearing the game in one run, the accomplishment lost on Nyxia in her ire. Pushing off the cabinet she nodded at Suki’s suggestion, sliding in a coin as she took the stick in hand.

"Can’t say I’ll put up much of a challenge but I’ll give it my best."

Taking the Omega Obliterator from where it rested against the side of her T.C. 2 cabinet, Nyxia moved to stand near Gearmantic Hearts so she could watch the virtual duel unfold, fervently hoping that it wouldn’t devolve into a kissing contest like the last time she’d seen Roche challenge Suki.

"If you haven’t played before, you can just pick Penny Pinnacle. She’s really pretty and equally overpowered, heh!" A staple for most fighting game protagonists. Suki grabbed a joystick. "I’m gunna use Tsubotica!" The Moonoid Maiden was the game’s villain. She graced Suki’s side of the screen with a fine kimono, wearing her signature bunny mask. It was metallic and cold, even by the standards of a game where all the characters were robots. She hovered above the ground while her envoy, two moon rabbits and a saucer, floated to her sides and above her head respectively. She seemed to sit in the air, producing a fan and a pipe in the process. Tsubotica threw one leg over the other and proceeded to fan herself, occasionally taking a puff from her pipe. It was almost as if she was waiting for her opponent to arrive.

"I walked among those mortals unseen. Now I see all, illuminated by the moon from which I rule upon." The vileness spoke.

Suki’s eyes were locked on the screen, and a silly smile crossed her face.

"Aren’t the main antagonists the broken ones?"

"Maybe in the past, but most modern fighting games have boss versions of characters that you can’t normally play as." Tsubotica was like most villain characters in that she was known for being the hardest to play. A zoning character that performed her best at mid to long range in a game all about closing distances and comboing your opponent into oblivion. Her rabbits were notoriously hard to manage, and didn’t produce much damage. Most of her summons were designed to create openings for her ’Gold Gift’ special that charged up a special meter for her true strongest attack. Of course, damage wasn’t everything. A skilled Tsubotica player could lock down their opponent in moon rabbits and saucers without a need to deal big damage. Suki just really liked the aesthetic of a noble moon queen who used cute bunnies to fight for her. "She’s not bad, but Penny has a reputation for being pretty OP. Closest thing I can offer that feels like a handicap, heh!"

Unfamiliar with the roster, she deferred to Suki’s better judgement and chose the clear Protagonist choice. Even if the bright pink color scheme reminded her of a GEM, an alternate scheme splashed purple paint over the mecha maiden that was far more pleasing to the eye.

"Alright, which stage is Final Destination? Let’s keep it simple."

"The stages are really just window dressing. There’s no meaningful difference between them." But that didn’t mean that Suki didn’t have a preference. She slapped the arcade stick a few times until the Witch’s Tower was highlighted. It had to be a late game stage. It was dark out with a moon silhouetting a tower. "Alright! I can’t remember the last time I played!"

…

Marrywell’s Academy of Engineering was a scientific marvel. Technology had advanced to the point that it was comparable to magic. Steam, electricity, water, fire, and many other sources of energy could be used to power any kind of automaton that one could think of. The magic-like technological advancements of the Academy of Engineering were such that the pinnacle of the structure was called the Witch’s Tower. There was only one path in; a brick walkway that was narrow enough to constitute as a battleground for a two dimensional fight in a 3D space.

Tsubotica was near the tower. With an effortless flourish, she drew her pipe and took a single puff. Or maybe she was simply venting exhaust? The golden machine in an iron mask and silken robes looked over her shoulder. She had been followed. With princess-like grace, she spun in the air and faced her pursuer.

"It seems I’ve been followed." She stashed her pipe and drew her fan, which she immediately started to fan herself with. "If it isn’t the little droid that could, the last pebble at the end of the path." The fan closed. "I suppose you mean to stop me?"

"Like I could do anything less!" Penny Pinnacle boldly declared, coming upon the walkway and casting a finger towards the smoking machine. "Your senseless cruelty will come to an end today!"

As though at an unseen que the staring match between them was shattered with an explosive call to action, Penny Pinnacle flipping forward before crashing down in a diving kick.

In a flash, a moon rabbit dove in front of Tsubotica and raised its wooden mallet. Its little paws quivered as Penny’s thrusters triggered, holding the two in a deadlock.

"Senseless cruelty?" The princess laughed darkly. "Where I to have met a soul as noble as yours when I first visited this sunless land I may have abandoned my plans entirely." With a snap of her fingers, a second rabbit dove out of the darkness. Penny kicked off the first rabbit and delivered a midair roundhouse to the second. "But the cause of my crimes now stands before us." Tsubotica pointed at the tower. "Merlin’s daughter must perish for both moon and earth to prosper. Have at you!"

"I fricking love that monologue!" Suki chirped.

But the opening banter sequence had run its course, and now it was time for the fight to commence.

Tsubotica hopped into the air and pointed her fan at Penny. "By the glow of the moon!" Two moon rabbits charged onto the bridge. One had a wooden mallet like before, and the other had a bucket. Before Tsubotica floated down to the bridge again, she swiped her fan upwards, and the bucket rabbit dove into the air, threatening to give Penny a helmet without any holes.

"Darn, is it too late for a mirror match?" Roche quipped.

Suki giggled. "You’d never win!"

Penny jerked into motion, swaying back and forth before zipping forward into a slide as the bucket rabbit sailed overhead. Her arachnid like limbs plunged backwards, bladed tips striking heavily at the rabbit while she sprung off the ground to launch another kick at the mallet rabbit.

The range on Penny Pinnacle’s multiple limbs was insane. She nearly cleared the play area between her two attacks. The bucket rabbit was reduced to its base elements, and the mallet rabbit tumbled past Tsubotica’s feet. Though the moon princess never stopped moving, and with another wave of her fan, a saucer flew overhead. It fired a golden tractor beam at Penny, briefly suspending her in the air.

"Truce?"

Tsubotica hurled a golden insect at Penny, which harmlessly bounced off of Penny and knocked her out of the tractor beam. Though the golden gift gauge filled to the first mark. With a snap of the princesses fingers, more moon rabbits arrived.

This time however, they arrived from both sides of the bridge. A bucket rabbit charged Penny from behind, while a mallet bunny spun its way down the bridge with its mallet threatening to hit anyone in its path. And the saucer hadn’t left either. The golden light beneath it sputtered as it powered up for another attack. The cowardly Tsubotica was reaching into her robes for another trinket.

"No deal, you playboy reject." The Heroine scowled at the unwanted gift, falling from the saucer’s grip but keenly aware the terrain was not in her favor. She kicked off the ground, rising over the passage of an airborne mallet and letting her limbs stretch wide, the blades curling into the hull of the saucer.

Then she lurched forward, grabbing and hurling it at the cowardly moon princess.

When the saucer struck her it detonated, throwing her back some distance. Tsubotica planted her feet on the ground and skidded to a halt before hovering again. Her mask’s perfectly smooth surface was cracked, and it broke away enough to reveal one of the princess’s sapphire eyes. "So you have some skill, or is it just luck?" She pointed at Penny, and another duo of moon rabbits showed up. This time they were wielding a stone bowl and the other had a pestle that it held like a club. Meanwhile, the first pair of moon rabbits had teamed up. The hammer rabbit now had a bucket on its head and was swinging wildly while the other pointed at Penny and squeaked out commands only its kin could understand.

"Afraid yours has run out?" Penny landed easily, tossing her white hair with a negligent flick of her hand in the face of the rabbits doubling in number. Her eyes narrowed as her head tilted back, looking down her nose at the foreign princess bereft of a full mask. "You only made it this far because you hadn’t met me."

There was a flash as steam erupted from the mechanized maiden’s body, energy bleeding from the seams as her bladed limbs snapped forward, joined together at a single point that aimed to sweep the bridge before her. Penny’s Super flashed, dashing forward as she swept up the order shouting bunny and kept dashing to sweep up Tsubotica before laying into both with a blistering fast combo.

While some of the moon rabbits fell from the bridge in pieces, Tsubotica opened her fan and allowed Penny to smash into her. The attack sent her soaring backwards, above a saucer that scooted under her feet and tripped up the multi appendaged heroine. While she was still in the air, the saucer’s tractorbeam saved the two rabbits from Penny’s combo while the moonoid maiden bounced another golden gift off of her opponent’s head. This time a golden lollipop.

"Tell me how we really feel."

Tsubotica and her bunny henchmen were not about to give Penny a chance to retaliate. The mallet rabbit walloped Penny away, but they had traveled so far that they were at the other end of the bridge. She collided with the witch’s tower directly above the doorway. Tsubotica rose up to greet her, and stabbed the pink-but-now-actually-purple robot in the chest with her pipe before stomping her into the side of the tower. On her descent she threw yet another gift; a golden ring.

The golden gift gage was full.

The super bar was filled.

And the combo wasn’t over.

"Let me show you what my friends are capable of!"

An avalanche of moon rabbits fell from the sky and pelted the witch’s tower. Some of them smashed into Penny, either with their weapons or their metallic bodies. They left cracks on the tower wherever they struck, but none of them managed to land on the bridge. Once the bunny storm had expired, it looked like Penny might actually land. But Tsubotica pulled back her arm, and the fine silken garments that covered it were ripped free as golden baubles, gears, and syringes oozing black tar popped out of her arm.

"Be my concubine!"

She thrust her arm, or the grievous contraption it had turned into, towards Penny. She was bathed into the corrosive, mind altering goop it spat out. But her HP bar… was still above twenty percent.

"Ah, what resistance." Her arm reverted back to its original shape, but her silken robes did not. "I thought for sure that would have been the end of you." She adjusted her mask. "Well then! Rabbits, atta-"

"Concubine? What the hell…" Roche said under their breath.

Suki didn’t take her eyes off the screen. "She gets a little weird when you max out Golden Gift."

Was Penny busted for surviving that combo, or was Tsubotica unbalanced for nearly KOing her in seconds? The heroine was kicking up to her feet, black sludge clinging to her as she adopted a haggard, low health state.

"Disgusting." Penny grunted out, trying to fight her way back into range of Taubotica, knowing they were going to have to battle through the rabbits this time. Yet they had all the distance and the numbers were against her, even as her limbs shredded the first mecha rabbit she came upon.

But rather than using her ruined limbs, Penny activated her copy cat protocol. It rained moon rabbits again, but this time it did so on Tsubotica and her henchmen. The saucer fell out of the sky, the two moon rabbits were no match for a snow storm of them, and Tsubotica couldn’t get her fan up in time to block the incoming flurry. All it took was a few good shots to knock off her mask. When it did, it became apparent that Tsubotica wasn’t a golden android, but a cyborg with golden parts. Once the rain off moon rabbits subsided, the wicked princess collapsed.

Penny had won the fight.

"I uh, wasn’t expecting you to know how to do that.." Suki giggled.

Roche’s hands were slick as she released the stick, not expecting the match to be that intense. "Sometimes button mashing pays off. But wow Suki, you really had my number there."

"I thought I was out of practice."

It was obviously a matter of OP character balancing, but it was still a win. Feeling chipper for it, she looked back to Nyxia with a grin. "How are you holding up?"

"Fine," Nyxia replied nonchalantly. "I see Penny’s still as busted as ever, but you did really well for your first time playing her," she added with a grin, pleased to see Suki defeated yet again. "It was quite the treat to watch, wasn’t it, baby?" the Neon Tempest inquired as she gently caressed her beloved death ray. While she’d never particularly cared for Penny Pinnacle, she absolutely despised Tsubotica, so it was extremely satisfying to see Roche crush the Moonoid Maiden, and the fact Suki was the one playing her was the icing on the proverbial cake.

Not that Suki seemed particularly bothered by it. She took a step away from the cabinet and stretched her arms over her head before turning to face everyone with a smile. Though a realization hit her. "Oh, do you play?" She set her hands on her hips. "Did you want to play a round with Roche, or would you rather hunt some Miseria?"

"I’m good with whatever you want." While Roche and Suki had their fun, it hadn’t slipped her notice that Nyxia had yet to do the same. Or loosen any of that tension she had around the Club’s resident romantic.

"Well, I think I already said I’d rather kill Miseria than play games," Nyxia replied. "But if ya wanna get some more experience with Gearmantic Hearts, I don’t particularly mind," she told her partner. "I mean, as far as games go, it is one of my favorites." the Neon Tempest added, her mouth curling into a small smirk.

The Rule Keeper glanced at Suki before matching Nyxia’s smirk with one of her own. "A few more rounds won’t hurt. Same as Time Crisis, the beaten player swaps out."

Roche could only hope Suki got a round in before the call of the Miseria drew them into the hunt.

Upon stepping up to the controls, Nyxia suddenly realized that she was now presented with a small problem. Although her paranoia still wasn’t anywhere near the level of her conspiracy board-keeping partner, her encounters with Finn had led her to be far more thoughtful of her actions and how they might link her two forms together. Of course, he could have simply seen her transform back when the shadow monkeys invaded her home, but she fervently hoped he had been too busy dealing with said monkeys to notice. Thus, choosing her favorite fighter, Xolys, was not an option, and while she could have chosen one of her typical alternatives, Sixshooter Synthia or the energy SMG wielding Necroid 99, the Neon Tempest decided to go with a much more unorthodox option. Gearmantic Hearts had a secret character, one she could feign complete ignorance of as Norika, and it was that character Nyxia ultimately selected.

Rapidly toggling the joystick in a carefully choreographed series of movements, while simultaneously pressing a precise pattern of buttons, the Neon Tempest caused the character selection screen to split apart, revealing her chosen fighter: Botizar Hopperdink, the Techno Toad. The chrome-bodied anthropomorphic amphibian sported a glowing, neon teal mohawk and wielded a jagged-edged key-tar, itself seemingly made of pulsating purple neon tubes. "They won’t last long when they hear my songs!" Botizar’s heavily auto-tuned voice croaked as he was selected.

"So, ready to get started?" Nyxia inquired with an eager grin.

The Rule Keeper blinked, wondering why Nyxia hadn’t dragged them to the game in the first place if she wasn’t so adept as to know the secret character. One that seemed awfully influential on her Magical Girl form.

"Alright, let’s do this."

Naturally she got creamed.

…

…

…

For as baffled as she had seemed, Roche had attempted to play Tsubotica in the very next game and discovered how difficult such a character was to play. Suki for her part rotated through most of the characters and wasn’t taking anything too seriously. She seemed just as happy to win or lose.

"You’re gunna have to pick someone and get gud with ‘em, Roach! Then we can have a proper friend tournament or something." Suki wore a nervous smile. "I guess we should start hunting miseria now, huh?" she looked between her two club mates.

There was no shock to finding a character who fought entirely through minions and projectiles was harsher to grasp then someone with an omnidirectional grapple, but fun was had all around.

"I’ll need to get more practice in before we get something like that up and running." Roche answered with a chuckle, pleased to find that the game was compelling enough to let the three unwind. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d stood side by side with Suki outside of mortal peril for so long.

Still, they’d tried Roche and Suki’s ideas. It was only fair they tried Nyxia’s next. Earthshaker stepped away from the consoles, pulling down her hood to keep her affable expression bare to see.

"Alright Nyxia, pick a direction and we’ll follow."

"Gotta admit, that was actually kinda fun," Nyxia conceded once the three had begun leaping across the rooftops. "But how’s this for a game: whoever kills the most of these fuckers wins!" she added, vaporizing a Miseria with a twisting neon beam as soon as it floated up from an alleyway.

"You got a head start, but I think I can catch up!" Suki dove between two buildings, and a geyser of miseria fragments erupted from the alleyway.

"Don’t think you’ve got the edge in this game!" Roche pivoted down an alley, shield raised as she rushed forward like a rampaging bull. Her body burning brighter as Miseria were crushed, layer by layer against the hidebound frame.

Nyxia grinned as she lined up a shot on a bubbling cluster of amorphous Miseria. Despite her earlier doubts, the trip to the arcade had been far more enjoyable than she’d thought it would be. Plus, in a happily unexpected turn of events, Suki had actually been somewhat tolerable. Maybe, just maybe, the Neon Tempest’s relationships with her various non-Roche club mates would eventually improve in the same way as her relationship with the Rule Keeper had. Only time would tell…

October was here. As spooky as Halloween could be, Oros doubted anything would top Black Gate and her wicked nightmare inducing monkeys. But that was okay. In Japan, Halloween wasn’t some kid’s holiday where people got razor laced candy from strangers. It was an excuse for adults to dress up, get drunk, and do something that would land them in jail. She doubted any of her peers could really appreciate the holiday like she could, which was the correct way.

But she hadn’t called a club meeting to talk about that.

Speaking of club meetings, this one was being hosted in the attic of that mansion Rei had tried to snag. It wasn’t theirs yet, but only good girls concerned themselves with the laws of man. Oros had it on good authority that classes would be starting here as early as next week. And while that information wasn’t known by all members of the club, it also wasn’t especially important. Oros only knew because Bast had told her, and she was no more trustworthy than Pinocchio.

Nothing had been done to the attic to make it livable, as it wasn’t really their space yet. It was very much a space to store things in that had no concern for how it looked or felt. Some wood planks had been nailed in place to make the floor strong, but it wasn’t pretty. Every step made a creaking sound, and cobwebs lingered in every corner. There were some cardboard boxes that held things in storage, and they had all been recently opened. Most of it was old documentation for taxes, but one of the boxes contained a stack of Fun Men magazines. Someone had recently flipped through them all, as there was very little dust on that particular box. Nor was there any dust in front of it, as if someone had a coughing fit and suddenly fell to the ground. Otherwise, a few boxes had been arranged side by side to make a center table of sorts, which was about the right height for a kneeling height table. There were only three sources of light in the attic. Once was an uncovered lightbulb that cast a warm orange glow, and the others were the windows at either end. They were as tall as the attic was and had a frame that divided up the glass like a pizza. During the day, the light coming in from the windows was so bright the old lightbulb wasn’t necessary.

Most everyone had shown up, save for the usual suspects. Rei was always absent from these meetings, and Willow was only there half the time. And when she did show up, she kept herself hidden until she chose to reveal herself. This would do.

"So uh, we gotta hunt giga miseria now, I guess." After a pause, Oros added. "And it can’t be in Hibusa town." With a sigh, she added another statement. "And the GEMS are still hanging around. Outside of Hibusa, which makes doing anything nearby sorta risky. So we need to get them to go away, or go really, really far away for our miseria hunting."

The Supervisor (self-appointed) surveyed the Club as they settled into their temporary base. Gathering around a makeshift table of upturned cardboard boxes brought back some unpleasant memories, but she would not dwell on them. "I don't imagine the GEMs will agree to leave Hibusa town unattended after what happened, but we have other options. We could also go farther away from Hibusa, if everyone's up for a little 'test of courage.'" Evil Eye placed her laptop on the box in front of her, which sagged beneath its weight. She had to adjust it twice before it would settle properly. "I realized something after our battle with Black Gate caused the same giga miseria to spawn again. Causing mass hysteria isn't creating them, it's attracting ones that already exist. Trying to summon a bunch of them in one place wouldn't just make us a regular nuisance to the locals and get the GEMs on our case—it might not even work, long-term."

Opening her laptop, she pulled up a map of Japan. "If I make a map that includes every city, town and village, shrinking or enlarging their markers based on population size, density, and crime rate per capita—an estimate of how easy it would be to summon a giga miseria—" She began to demonstrate as she shamelessly leeched the Tsukishima family's wifi. "Fudge a rough estimate of the number of light girls in each one by accounting for number of schools and average age—and color each pin based on that, with 'hot' colors meaning more potential magical girls, and more potential problems—" She appended a neat flourish to her flurry of data entry, which was clearly prepared in advance. "There. A map of suitable locations." She adjusted her non-existent glasses in victory.

As per usual, Nyxia entered the makeshift clubroom by slipping through one of the windows, its center pivoting to permit her passage. “Interesting choice for a new meeting spot…” the Neon Tempest noted as she scanned the dingy attic with narrowed eyes, while her mouth formed a disdainful scowl. Yet, it wasn’t just the lack of cleanliness that bothered the teal-haired terror. It hadn’t escaped her that this seemingly unoccupied house was practically next door to her own, and it was this fact that brought her the greatest amount of annoyance. Indeed, it seemed that despite all her efforts to retain her anonymity, every new development actively worked to undermine that goal. “And here I’d thought we’d be using an old warehouse or something…” she muttered.

Propping her beloved death ray against a support beam, Nyxia leaned back against the giant energy cannon and folded her arms under her chest as she listened to Oros’s introductory statements, followed by Evil Eye’s assessment of the whole “Giga Miseria situation”. The Neon Tempest had to admit, for a creepy and insufferably smug voyeur, the crimson-eyed young woman was actually quite competent when it came to such matters. Indeed, the level of detail present on her map provided ample proof of the effort she’d put into compiling the data needed to make it. Unfortunately, there was a not inconsiderable problem inherent to the conclusion the eye-themed girl had reached, at least as far as Nyxia was concerned.

“Nice plan, but, uh, with my… family situation being what it is, long-distance road trips aren’t really something I can do,” she told the group with a disappointed frown. If she was being honest, the Neon Tempest was all for slaying unique Miseria in distant locations, without the ever annoying GEMs showing up to be their usual bothersome selves. Yet, she also knew that there was almost zero chance of something like that being possible for someone like her. After all, it wasn’t like she even went to the same school as the rest of the club. “So, uh, have fun killing the fuckers without me, or whatever…” Nyxia added, turning her head and casting a dejected glare into the room’s darkened shadows.

---

---

The topic of the meeting at current was something Haruna had been dreading for a while. It was something where the gap between light and dark couldn't be ignored. "Is summoning and killing giga miseria really the only way for you to get stronger? I assume that good deeds don't exactly work, but there has to be more than one way to power up. Like. . . I don't know. Maybe conflicts with light girls? If dark girls run on negative emotions, and light girls run on positive ones, maybe making a light girl expend her power will release negative energy, or something." Despite sounding a bit like she was grasping at straws, she felt like she almost had a theory here. "If that worked, the GEMs being around could be useful. Assuming I can't convince them to leave, which admittedly doesn't really seem super likely at this point."

---

Suika sat quietly in a dusted off corner of the room, barely illuminated by the windows, not quite confident enough to hide behind a box or in front of one. She simply lay against it, head resting on her arms over top of it, and listened to the others with her eyes closed.

Each of them seemed to have some sort of idea. The others had given their information, but she still hadn't gained the courage to give hers. Luckily, the conversation was able to somewhat distract her from it.

She stayed almost completely still as Evil Eye spoke, showing the Club her skill with information, and she only got more still as Nyxia replied, Suika's breathing going silent for a moment.

Truth be told, there wasn't anything in their words that caused it. She simply couldn't get any thoughts to go through her mind other than the repeating sense that she was failing somehow.

But as seemed to often be the case with the only Light Girl in the Detention Club, Haruna's words somehow changed things. Perhaps they weren't soothing, per se, but they gave Suika's own thoughts the traction they needed to start moving.

Her eyes opened halfway as she spoke up for the first time in the meeting. "... That's right." The words were followed by a long pause, as if she had returned to her old, slow self.

But this was not out of a lack of investment, this time, but out of self-doubt. She didn't want to mess things up somehow.

"If the problem is that the boss is drawing in the results before we can, then we don't need to get away, right?" It seemed obvious, but she knew that herself thinking so didn't make it true. She also knew that it was hard for the others to pick up on her thinking, so she paused again while she tried to put her intent into words, her finger tracing circles atop the box she lay on as she did.

"If the gems follow us, that's good, because they're not Dark Girls. Boss accidentally taking the power-up the Miseria drop means that..." Suika's finger stopped its circular movement to begin drawing a square instead.

"... if we don't beat the Miseria ourselves, if we're the only Dark Girls around..."

Her finger stopped moving entirely, as if she were punctuating her own point to herself. "... it shouldn't matter that they did it, right?"

The girl's eyes widened for a moment as another thought struck. "Actually, that might be why she's so strong..."

The obvious answer was that Rei had gotten so powerful because of the Club, either in its current form or when it was first formed. Gaining power for her from the actions of the members. But that couldn't be the case, if what they thought was true actually was.

If the 'theft' was due to a stronger Dark Girl being nearby, then Rei couldn't have only started taking in the others' work after the Club entered its current form. She'd have to have been so much stronger to start with.

But if that was the case, then how did she get so strong, and how did it happen by her own efforts? Did she start super young, and single-handedly defeat every Misera and Giga Miseria that had been in Hibusa for years? Surely not...

Which left the next obvious answer: Schrade was, in addition to her own work, benefiting from the proximity of the City of Light, where Dark Girls all but couldn't even exist in, making her the strongest Dark Girl in quite a range. If she was getting boosts from the work of the Light Girls as well... well, it would certainly explain the absurd level of power she had.

"Maybe we just need the boss to go on a trip instead?"

There was no progress on the matter of Chiaki or the ‘new’ existence within Takae Shuuko’s body. Or rather, Ember had made a single discovery, but it helped no one: Hiramatsu Chiaki did not exist in their shared space, as far as she could sense her. She was not certain, yet the only one who could have been able to confirm it, Sylvia, had far more pressing matters to attend to, such as trying to restore the very foundations of her existence. If Ember were a lesser woman, she would have screamed her frustration to the high heavens.

As it was, she put on the appearance of a composed adult in the new ‘club room’, which turned out to be a dusty attic of some building Rei had appropriated with the help of Nyxia’s family, thus proving how far the Detention Club head’s fingers reached. It was disturbing, especially in the light of the information she learned from Ryoba and the others. Which came from Ashbringer. Their enemy.

Regardless of that, Ember listened carefully to Suki, Kiyo, Nyxia and Tsubomi and it seemed that it fell to her to point out the obvious.

”Why are we so certain that Ashbringer is feeding us the unvarnished truth? Though I had not encountered her personally, if she is as dangerous as you say she is, I would not put it past her to have plans within plans.” While she did not share the paranoid opinions of Hotaru, it did seem all too convenient for Sink Queen to show up at a crucial moment and then snatch Michi away from them. With the club’s permission, no less.

”We are already stretched thin as it is and while the GEMS have not attacked us,” she nodded towards Haruna as a way of acknowledging her contributions to the matter, ”we can not know for certain when they will barge into Hibusa Town again. I do not want to expose us more than we already are. And even if we assume what Ashbringer says is true, I believe Tsubomi brings up a valid point.”

Ember ripped off one a piece from one of the cardboard boxes, then held it up. She then grabbed a pen from her pocket and drew a rough approximation of a circle, then added lines heading towards the centre of it.

”What if every Dark Magical Girl is, in fact, a singularity… my apologies, a black hole… for Miseria specifically? It would imply they have a radius in which they ‘pull’ the power of dead Miseria in,” she tapped the circle’s edge and the lines, ”and that radius could be any size. If we continue the metaphor, then we are lesser black holes, but that does not prevent us from drawing on power from Miseria if we are close enough.”

”Hunting lesser Miseria more frequently or extending our hunting grounds, I believe, is also an option. And while I appreciate your extensive work on locations for the club to scope out, Kuroki-san,” she nodded towards Kiyo in respect, ”I am against the idea. I think we need to establish a stronger foundation here, in Hibusa Town.”

Because I don’t want to drag the others through hell and back again if we lose our home.

---

Coming to a desolate attic in an old mansion wasnt Roche’s idea of a good time, especially when none of them had even gotten around to dusting it. Blessedly, Nyxia’s insistence to travel via windows did provide some circulation, though if they weren’t transformed already then Roche would have been wearing a mask for all the disturbed dust floating about.

It was a shame that their first meeting at a new club room was so divisive, as everyone had their own ideas on what they should do and issues that excluded others from participating.

”Haruna, if that were the case, we’d be empowered just from Light Girls falling to being Dark. As far as I’ve seen that isn’t the case.” The Rule Keeper sighed, shifting on her knees as she sat over her folded cloak. Better to be bare then risk tetanus, magical girl endurance be damned. She also didn’t want to even consider the national response if it became known a group of Dark Magical Girls were farming the suffering of Light Girls for power.

Probably wouldn’t be much of a city left when that blows up in our face.

”We aren’t doing anything to exclude you, Nyxia. If we’ve learned anything recently, it’s that it takes a group to hunt Giga Miseria. If this black hole theory is correct you’d grow stronger with less of us around, but we can’t say how much.”

Tentatively folding her hands over the cardboard, the Rulekeeper exhaled through her nostrils and looked at Kiyo and Ember trying to offer the most organized responses to the quagmire before them.

”As much as ditching the city rubs me the wrong way, the GEMS only care about us and our Mascots. Same for Ashbringer. We could swing it as a school trip while the mansion gets refurbished if we want a public cover for traveling, but at the end of the day, what we need most is distance from Rei while doing it. We can’t have every hunt be a repeat of the Beach or we’ll be wasting time we don’t have. On the other hand, if we start drawing more Giga Miseria here, the GEMS are going to escalate thinking well doom the city.”

”I’m in favor of Kiyo’s plan, assuming I can sort out accommodations for all of us. ” She amended with a glance at her partner and Ember, minding turning to the slumbering girl laid up at home

Oros had moved to stand behind Kiyo so that she could see the computer screen. It was an impressive map that Kiyo had made, and she doubted it was the sort of thing you could make in an afternoon while drunk or playing videogames. "Oooohhhhh…" It was also kind of neat to see the map lit up with all the different colored pins. She didn’t know exactly how Kiyo had compiled all that information, but trusted it was probably just as effective as Kiyo seemed to think it was.

Nyxia was the next to speak. Of course, she had a problem with it. But it sounded like a genuine problem. Maybe. "Uh, well, the beach vacation we took over the summer wasn’t too bad, right? The night lasts a few hours. We can get pretty far away from Hibusa in that time. Even if it's just a weekly thing, it's gotta be better than what we're doing now."

Haruna seemed to favor an alternative approach. One that made Oros raise an eyebrow. Of course there were many, many, many problems with what Haruna was suggesting. Maybe the other detention club girls would be okay fighting the GEMs, but Oros had no desire to run into them again any time soon. Though if Haruna was that curious, the lot of them could just pound the shit out of Haruna to confirm if that worked or not.

…

Regardless, Oros would not be the one to suggest that idea.

Things got more theoretical when Suika got involved. Suika seemed to be suggesting some kind of passive farming strategy involving the GEMs killing the miseria for them plus removing Rei from the picture. It was an idea, but could they get Rei to leave? Oros was under the impression that she moved to this location for a specific reason. And about light girls killing miseria…

Shuuko was against all of it though. She started talking about black holes for some reason. Black holes were cool, but it wasn’t something that Oros could really wrap her mind around. A hyperdense mass that had a pull so strong that it pulled in light. By that logic, a black hole should be the brightest thing in the universe. Why was it so dark if it never released its light? If dark girls were black holes, then was the argument that they had more light inside them than light girls? It was interesting, but she didn’t see the value in this comparison.

Fortunately, Miss second-in-command was there to bring the group back into focus. Sometimes, all you needed to do was strip away all the bullshit and put it out there in plain terms. "Yup!" Oros nodded like a bobble head. "It’s all just theory until we can prove any of it. We know we get stronger fighting giga miseria, but this bit of information about Boss Baby sucking the fun out of everything is new. If it turns out to be true, we can try fighting weaker miseria, or miseria that are closer, or letting light girls kill the miseria." After saying out loud, Oros paused. "Actually, it was my understanding that light girls are made of good emotions and they just kind of disintegrate them, where consuming and growing off of dark emotions is a dark magical girl thing. But none of this ever made any real sense to me, so maybe it's best to not think about too hard." It had been a while since Oros had fought solo as a dark girl. She had watched light girls fight miseria before, but it never made her stronger. "Anyway, we can try it, but unless it’s the city of light, I would think there would be some dark girls around that want that power for themselves. They uh, aren’t always the most friendly." It probably didn't need to be said. Black Gate was a confusing case and Oros still wasn’t sure how to feel about it. "But first we need a ride! And one that’s not going to draw a lot of unwanted attention. Or I mean, do we? Short of a bus I don’t think we’re going to find something that comfortably seats everyone and their, uh, accessories." Oros flicked her eyes to Nyxia’s gun briefly. "Aren’t school buses kind of a western thing anyway?" Even if they weren’t, the previous high school was razed to the ground. Though the new mansion did have a garage to house a car. It was empty, but they’d have a place to store a vehicle if they found one. "What about bikes? Motorcycles would be cooler but we're trying to keep a low profile."