Emi wanted to lay a trap—a giant spiderweb of her own. She’d been thinking about it, planning it, the whole flight here.

  Her [Hailstorm Hex] was a spell she typically cast in one go, tracing out the magic circle that determined where her icy spears would erupt from in a size no larger than a hula hoop. However, the spell had no inherent limit on how large an area it could cover. If Emi had enough power to supply it, she could create a hex that covered an entire football field. Or, in this case, an entire city plaza.

  “It’s going to take time,” Emi said to Adah, “and focus. I won’t be able to pay any attention to the spider.”

  “So you need Ami to guard you.”

  If Emi was able to concentrate on the spider’s attacks, she had the speed to dodge whatever it threw at her. [Hailstorm Hex] required a continuous channeling of magic, though, and tracing the magic circle would force her to pull her focus away from the Cruelty. Not to mention, she couldn’t just float in the sky and draw out the hex from afar—she needed to be close to a surface in order to imbue it with magic.

  In other words, she was going to have to fly around the whole plaza while looking away from her enemy. Something like that would only be possible if Ami dedicated all her own effort toward protecting Emi.

  It was a simple plan, really.

  “Except you don’t want to ask Ami for help,” Adah said.

  “We’re still stepping on each other’s toes,” Emi said. “And she’s not going to want to play defense against our first real B-Rank.”

  “Did she say that to you?” Adah asked. “Or are you making an assumption?”

  Emi shook her head. It hadn’t been anything Ami had said, but Emi could just… feel it.

  Yet, it was only a feeling.

  “Ami’s the type to say what she’s thinking, right?” Adah said. “And the only way to stop getting in each other’s way is to say what’s on your mind. That goes for both of you.”

  “But if she doesn’t want to, we don’t need to!” Emi said in a hurry.

  “Let her decide that,” Adah said. “The four of us share one goal right now. You have a responsibility to tell us how you want to get there, and we have a responsibility to hear you out. The outcome of that conversation doesn’t matter as much as having it does.”

  For so long, Ami had been the one Emi needed to say the least to. They were always on the same page from the get-go, so any words they did say to each other were just for fun.

  Now that they weren’t on the same page, why were the words so hard to say? The person Emi had the easiest time talking to was becoming the hardest.

  “It’s your call,” Adah said, “but you need to decide. We’re still in a battle.”

  Adah was right—the spider Cruelty had set its eyes on them. It looked to be deciding on an angle for its counterattack, but this was only a momentary peace.

  Maybe it was true that Emi didn’t have something to say most of the time. There were absolutely times when she was happier not saying anything than speaking up for the sake of it.

  But if she leaned on that idea even when it wasn’t true, even when she did have something to say…

  Then it was nothing but an excuse.

  “Ami!” Emi shouted, her voice so shaky it came out almost as a squeak. “I have an idea. I just… I need…”

  Ami looked at her sister. A wordless understanding solidified in her eyes.

  “I got it,” she said. “Just stay behind—”

  “No!” Emi yelled again, with no better control over her voice. Still, she needed to say it in her own words. “Together, let’s do it together. I’m sorry but—one more time—can you be my shield?”

  Ami frowned and closed her eyes. Then that frown turned into a scowl.

  “I don’t wanna hear ‘sorry!’” Ami shouted back. “Tell me it’s gonna be fun! Tell me it’s gonna be cool! Tell me you want to kill this thing with me!”

  “Huh?”

  Ami cast her [Aspis Meniscus] and [Cryo Celestics] all at once, the ring of icicles spinning like a tornado around her as she spread her watery shield between her palms.

  “What are you apologizing for?” she said. “Is it ‘cause you think you’re gonna look so much cooler than me? ‘Cause I’m gonna be a meat shield while you show off? I already know you’re cool, but don’t think for a second that I’m not gonna show off too!”

  “Ami,” Emi said, watching her sister wide-eyed. “I…”

  “So don’t apologize for wanting to fight together!” Ami yelled. “Tell me that we’re gonna have fun, that we’re gonna look cool together, and then let’s fucking do it.”

  Ah, so that was it.

  Even Ami held back sometimes. No, maybe she’d been holding back for a while. These were probably the words she’d always wanted to say, ever since their team started getting more attention. They were always hidden behind everything else that came out of her.

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  If she could be honest, so could Emi. She dismissed Mercury’s Majesty and began to channel her hex. The magic flowed down to the fingertips of her right hand, ready to get to work.

  “Help me,” she said. “Help me show the whole world how cool I can be. Let’s have the most fun a magical girl can have—together.”

  “Yeah,” Ami said. “But that’s not all I’m gonna do.”

  Ami barreled toward the ground before she even finished talking, and Emi followed right on her trail. This plaza wasn’t much more than a giant concrete slab with a fountain at its center. A few gray blocks that served as benches, a patch of leafless trees in each corner, but not much else. That was what made it perfect. The open space let them fly around with ease, and Emi could trace her hex however she pleased.

  “When you’re ready,” Adah’s voice reached Emi, “Rika and I will knock this thing out of the sky for you.”

  The two girls who had stayed back began firing spells at the spider, trying to take it’s attention as much as they could. The Cruelty didn’t pay them much mind, though. Their projectiles burst against the monster’s carapace without damaging it, so it focused on firing an attack of its own toward Ami and Emi.

  The spider web attack was all too obvious to Ami, who caught the string of silk in her shield as she flew. The web tried to wrap around Ami’s arms, creeping through the water of her shield, but Ami released the spell before the web could get a grip on her. Both the water and the silk fell to the ground. She conjured her [Aspis Meniscus] again, as well as the watery fists of her Poseidon’s Pugni this time.

  “What you never realized, Emi,” Ami said to her, “is that everyone’s attention has always been on you. Me? I’m just an open book. Everyone thinks they know what I’m about from their first impression of me. But you? Everyone’s always been drawn to you.”

  Ami caught and dropped another web attack from the spider, giving Emi the space she needed to start her magic tracing along the ground of the plaza. The first lines of ice appeared, stuck to the concrete like the aftermath of a winter storm. The lines followed Emi as she flew from one tree patch toward the next.

  “Everyone always wants to know more about you,” Ami continued. “Did you know that my friends at school would ask me more questions about you than about myself? They always wanted to know what you were like.”

  “But you’re more fun to be around,” Emi said to her sister. “People would get bored of me if they got to know me. They’d drift away and leave me behind. You’re the one they’ll fall in love with.”

  “Huh?” Ami grunted. “Is my sister seriously this stupid?”

  The spider Cruelty had given up on its web attacks for the moment, and rushed toward the girls along the hammock it had made for itself. It lunged for Ami with its fangs bared, but she was prepared. A blast of water shot forth from her fist as she swung it toward the spider’s face, knocking it away like a beach ball. The monster barely managed to catch itself on another portion of its web.

  “I talk all this bullshit,” Ami said, catching her breath from her punch. “I say all these ridiculous things, but somehow whenever you squeak out some little sentence, everyone cracks up! You make one pose and everyone fawns over how cute you are! You’re worried about fading away? Don’t you know why I have to make all this noise? I gotta remind everyone that I’m here and I’ve got something to say!”

  They had flown past the far tree by now, and Emi’s hex was starting to take shape.

  “People don’t go crazy over me like they do for you,” Ami said. “No one wants to dote on the loudmouth, but I don’t care. It doesn’t matter what they want—I’ll make sure they hear every single word I want to say!”

  “Ami…” Emi searched for the words—for what it was she wanted to say—but only two came to mind. “I’m sorry.”

  “What did I say about apologizing?” Ami shouted, just before unleashing another punch into the spider that had yet to learn its lesson. “You don’t need to apologize. Because you know what? I want to dote on my sister even more than anyone else!”

  They passed the third corner of the plaza now. Most of the hex was traced onto the concrete. They only needed to cut across the final stretch and close the last bit of the circle, and then the trap would be laid.

  “I won’t be your shield,” Ami said. “I won’t sit here and get wailed on while you show off. I’m gonna pull all the attention to me! I’m going to bash my skull against every enemy we fight. Every time we’re on a mission, every time we’re in front of a camera—I’m going to hog 99 percent of that time! I know that at the end of it all, in that final one percent, everyone’s eyes are going to look at you. To watch you be cool. To see you do what you do best. I know they will because you are cool. You’re my favorite magical girl in the world. So you can have the finale, Emi, but every other single second belongs to me!”

  Emi completed the hex. The circle, with all the complex shapes and symbols inside of it, glowed as a signal of its primed energy. The whole plaza was covered by Emi’s ice.

  “Every other second,” Emi said quietly, so quietly that only her sister could hear, “my own eyes are going to be on you. My favorite magical girl.”

  “Then watch this.”

  Ami roared and reached out with both arms. The wrappings around her fists flowed out like a dozen streams, surging toward the spider suspended above the plaza. The water coiled itself around each of the spider’s legs, grabbing hold of it like the monster’s own webs were meant to capture its prey.

  Once Ami’s weapon had a firm grip on the Cruelty, she swung her arms down toward the ground.

  She didn’t need to say a word. Emi understood exactly what she had in mind.

  Emi activated her [Hailstorm Hex]. Countless spears, like a forest of icy trees, erupted from the ground. They caught the midday sun and sparkled, shimmering with a beauty that belied their power.

  As the spears shot out of the ground, Ami yanked the spider out of the air and slammed it down onto the plaza. Some spears shattered against the monster’s carapace but, with so many summoned, enough broke through the Cruelty’s armor to impale and eviscerate it. The beast spasmed for a moment, then seized up, it’s limbs locking into place.

  Yet, the Cruelty didn’t dematerialize. There was one step left of Emi’s plan.

  “Guess you didn’t need us,” Adah said as she and Rika touched down on the ground behind Ami and Emi.

  “I got a little caught up in the moment,” Ami said. “Sisterly bonding and all that.”

  “Your dinner awaits, princess,” Emi added, gesturing toward the mangled spider.

  “How appetizing.”

  Adah held her hand up to the sky and conjured a cloud of black smoke above her. From within that cloud emerged a scythe as black as onyx, with silver chains dangling from it. Emi could have sworn a shadow fell over Adah’s eyes as her hand gripped the weapon. Then, another trail of smoke crept out of the scythe’s head.

  Adah walked over to the incapacitated spider. With its carapace thoroughly cracked, the Cruelty’s core was exposed and ready for reaping. Adah swung her scythe’s blade into the swirling sphere of gray, then stood still as the sphere was swallowed by a black void. As that same blackness surged into her weapon, Adah closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The body of the Cruelty vanished soon after, leaving not even a web behind. The plaza was in the same condition as when the girls had arrived, and not a single person—magical girl or otherwise—was hurt.

  Adah turned to the looming, gray box that was the Department of Magic’s office building. She laid her scythe across the back of her shoulders, hooking her right arm over the weapon’s shaft. She tilted her head and held up her left arm in somewhat of a shrug.

  Anyone watching her, or taking a photo of her, would understand the meaning of her gesture.

  So, what now, Thibault?