"Why an old warehouse? We're not Yakuza." Nyxia had brought up an important problem, though. Kiyo tried her best to act like Nyxia's situation was normal, so she must have glossed over that detail in her half-asleep haze. Haruna had her own concerns. She meant well—she always did—but Kiyo knew it was unlikely she'd be listened to. Shuuko might be the only one who even listened to Kiyo's quack ideas about magical girls, and only Hotaru maybe kind of believed in them. Fortunately, Tsubomi dug her out of the hole with her own idea that was actually kind of brilliant. "Well, if anyone can think of a way to convince the Boss to go on her own road trip, that could be ideal..." The rest was left unsaid. It wasn't very likely they could convince Rei to do anything with her being none the wiser. In fact, Kiyo rather thought her own idea was quite unlikely to work unnoticed. Tsubomi mentioned Rei "accidentally" taking their power-ups, but she wasn't so certain of Rei's intentions in keeping them under her watch.

"The entire premise behind the one year deadline was that we need to get stronger, otherwise defeating us would not even be a challenge for her. That's what she said, isn't it? If that's actually true, then her plans shouldn't include misleading us about how to get stronger. If it's false, then she was never a threat, and she's just having fun watching us run around in a panic instead of calling her bluff." Kiyo tried not to let her frustration show, though Ember was likely going to notice anyway. It was her own fault for not being around when Ashbringer threw down the gauntlet.

Roche and Suki showing favor to her ideas put some wind back in her sails. "I can rent a company van. They'll comfortably seat seven... or eight." She glanced at the Omega Obliterator. "More importantly, if dark magical girls are black holes, then Hibusa is Rei's event horizon. Whatever 'gravity' we have doesn't really matter here. Her pull is just stronger than ours. Case in point..." She paused. She didn't really like to talk about the time she was gone—when she wasn't sure if she wanted to come back. "Suki. Last battle, you asked 'since when' could I create those stronger minions? I've been able to do it since I fought a giga miseria with another group of girls outside Hibusa town. I fought one, and that's when I came back to share my findings—though, you'd already fought the one on the beach." She tilted her head to address the others. "Unless someone else has gained a new ability they'd like to share, I'm guessing the boost from that last giga miseria Black Gate awakened didn't hit quite as hard as the one from the beach. Am I wrong?"

Nyxia listened as her club mates gave their various suggestions. Potentially growing stronger by beating up the GEMs was appealing enough to the Neon Tempest, but she still preferred cleansing Hibusa Town of the crimes against nature that were Miseria rather than some collection of mildly annoying brats. The idea of Rei leaving town only made Nyxia roll her eyes. Even if it was true that their overwhelmingly powerful, self-appointed leader’s presence was somehow syphoning off the bulk of the energy they’d normally gain by slaying Miseria, getting Rei to take a lengthy vacation seemed like the very definition of a lost cause. Talk then turned to black holes, and the possibility of Dark Girls having some similarities with them, but none of that really mattered one way or another to the Neon Tempest. Roche’s observations were of considerably more interest, and the terrifying tealette was genuinely grateful that her partner was unwilling to do anything without her. That said…

“Well, I’m not really sure how making it a school trip would solve anything,” Nyxia noted with a doubtful frown. “I mean, I’m not even enrolled at your school to begin with. And something tells me the plan here is for a trip that lasts a little longer than just one night,” she added with a condescending sneer in response to Oros’s observation. Damn, this perverted bitch is always so dense… the Neon Tempest grumbled to herself. However shortly thereafter, Suki brought up the possibility of riding motorcycles, which forced Nyxia to concede that maybe the perverted pinkette wasn’t a complete waste of space. Wait… She meant actual bikes? As in, bicycles? Okay, yeah, I take it back, she’s just as much of a dumbass as I thought.

---

Suika winced when Shuuko called her 'Tsubomi,' but she didn't think anyone noticed, given the conversation. She did her best to follow along, but a thought kept nagging at the back of her mind. The others don't know I met Regina...

It wasn't until Nyxia's point about a school trip being flimsy cover that she was finally overwhelmed by it. She hadn't even registered Evil Eye's question before it.

"I met Regina!" Suika nearly shouted her 'confession' of having kept a 'secret' from the Club as she sat upright. "Oh, er, Ashbringer, I mean. At least I'm pretty sure it was her."

A sheepish look took over her face, and she leaned back down and turned her neck so she was facing downwards, towards the dust-covered box she was once more laying against. "She went to the arcade when I was there, so I think she's watching us somehow. She also mentioned that Michi is basically on her side now..."

There was a tinge of anger in her voice as she gave her report. But it faded quickly, and soon she was back to her slightly nervous tone.

"She said that she wants to destroy everyone who was included in her challenge. It sounded like she only cared about the people who were there when it happened, but I don't think that's right..." Would Haruna be included, then?

Finally absolved of her self-imposed 'crime,' Suika started thinking about what had been said.

"I think if we leave, we're going to meet another person who'll be on her side, somehow. Maybe they're already working with her and she just... wants to make us aware of it? But I definitely think that we'll run into another member of her group if we leave town. Maybe even if we stay..."

Suika's face turned back towards the other club members. As if it had been waiting for the most dramatic time possible, more of her magic seemed to come back to her. For the first time since the aftermath of the day the dream happened, she could feel the emotions of the others again. In a split second she shot up to a full sitting position and slapped herself lightly on the cheeks as she tried to make herself feel something, anything, other than what she already was, but to no avail. It seemed she still couldn't affect her own newfound emotions with her magic.

Still, the return to being more 'normal' gave her hope, a smile breaking out on her face. "If we have to go somewhere, we might need two vehicles, in case one breaks down, right?" She tried to think back, but the memories wouldn't surface. Were there two possible drivers among the club members? "Otherwise, if we get one big one we can all fit in, odds are we'll get stranded somehow, since Regina is probably watching us. I wouldn't be surprised if she does something to it while we're there to 'force us to get stronger,' or something."

Another thought slipped by, smacking into her mind at just the right angle to spark the match of recognition. Suika's mouth spread into a wide grin, and she couldn't suppress a small laugh at the irony of it.

"Isn't it funny? Light Girls can grow however they want, but for Dark Girls... The only way to get stronger is together, as equals. If one gets too strong, they take away from the others. I'd guess they grow slower too, but the rest? We can't grow much at all."

She giggled slightly as she looked upward at the ceiling. "No choice but to 'huddle together for warmth,' I guess. Isn't that ridiculous? Your light goes out, and suddenly it pays to help each other instead of strangers."

Suika's smile slowly faded. Is that right? She wasn't sure, but she didn't want to dwell on that thought any longer. "If it's a field trip, maybe a place with a Museum? A chance to study the past... seems fitting for an excuse, doesn't it?"

It was hard to gauge how everyone felt. Fewer people were talking and most everyone seemed to be keeping to themselves. Everyone seemed to have ideas, but few had ways to actually implement them. As Evil Eye implied, it would be next to impossible to force Rei out of town.

"It definitely wasn’t." Suki agreed with Evil eye.

That was about when Nyxia looked at her weird. "Who said it had to be a school trip?" Roche had, but Nyxia wasn’t looking at Roche. She didn't think she secretly wanted to ride up and down the countryside on motorcycles as a lesbian biker gang, did she? Because that was 100% true, but Suki figured that Nyxia wouldn't be able to work that out. "I think we’re gunna have to do this at night or on the weekends, which would rule out making it a school activity." She looked at everyone else. "Even if it’s just once a week, it’s once a week more than we’ve been doing." Then she looked back over the computer. "So you can get a van? Why don’t we try that? This spot here doesn’t look too out of the way."

As soon as her finger touched the computer screen, Suika started talking. A lot. Way more than the old Tsubomi would have. Suki froze in place and allowed her companion to speak uninterrupted.

"Uhhhhh…"

That kinda came out of nowhere. If it was anyone else, Suki would have wondered why they hadn’t said something earlier. But because it was Suika, it was hard to be surprised. Or rather, it would have been hard to be surprised if it was still the old Tsubomi as Suki remembered her. But she was being shown time and time again that the girl she used to know really didn’t exist anymore. Had evil Tsubomi won? Was this how she planned on killing good Tsubomi? All of this to ponder before addressing that she had been confronted by Ashbringer, or anything else she managed to ramble out, both behind and ahead of the current point in the discussion. Suki was more or less paralyzed by the flow of revelations, not given enough time to really absorb much of what she said. So she mentally latched onto something she could understand and turned to Evil Eye with it.

"Can you rent two vans?"

It appeared Evil Eye wasn't holding back on pointed questions today. "Can we handle a giga miseria at night? The last one may have seemed like it went down almost too easily, but it wasn't that long ago that fighting the same one at night felt impossible," she reminded them. "I'm not inherently opposed to taking multiple trips out, but doing so might attract more attention, from Rei, the GEMs, and if Ashbringer's watching, her too. It's also more likely someone or something will follow us home if we keep coming back after every trip."

Suddenly, one of the other Club girls began to speak. It was Tsubomi—at least, as far as Evil Eye knew—but that was about to change. It had felt like the crisis surrounding Tsubomi's desire to 'kill Tsubomi' had been resolved, but rather suddenly, Evil Eye was forced to contend with the reality that there was no real reason why Tsubomi should suddenly just 'be okay.' Ever since Michi's betrayal, she'd been thinking of herself, Haruna, the three Shuukos, Suki, and even Roche, but the small part of Michi's stage play that she'd managed to catch before she'd run to find Rei had slipped through the gaps in her mind like a fever dream.

She said that she wants to destroy everyone who was included in her challenge. It sounded like she only cared about the people who were there when it happened, but I don't think that's right...

^{STOP TALKING.}
Barely louder than a whisper, but clear as day, Haruna heard it: a desire even Evil Eye couldn't quite manage to suppress.

Suika felt something from Evil Eye, too: a twinge of shame when she began speaking, and after her mentioning of Ashbringer's challenge, a sudden surge of anxiety that came in an instant and abated slowly over the next several minutes.

The others could only notice that Evil Eye chose not to engage with the part of Suika's commentary that waxed philosophical. If Evil Eye had a wheelhouse, that was it, and she either missed it, or chose to ignore it. "I wouldn't worry about getting stranded because of a broken down van. Even with no cell signal, two of us can fly out and get help if we really need it, and as magical girls, we really shouldn't be so helpless. I mean, I can get two vans, but who's going to drive the other one?" she asked, leaving the fact that she was pretty sure she was the only one with a license unsaid. "I wouldn't get pulled over on my bike because the normies can't see it when I'm riding it transformed, but I'm not sure that relying on magic obfuscation would work with a van."