Moon of Rejoining, 1067 AR

  ***

  Nicola awoke. Hers was a large bed, fit for royalty; always way too empty with only her lying under its covers, and cold, despite its many blankets, or so it was until recently. As she turned her head to her side she saw Hifumi’s face, eyes closed in blissful sleep, clinging to her side and sharing the warmth of the blanket.

  Nicola barely registered when they crossed the line from acquaintances into friends and then into lovers, but it happened over the course of the past two weeks. At first Hifumi visited every day to talk about her various new story ideas, and Nicola was always glad to receive her and listen to her, even when she went into vivid sensual details. Hifumi apparently wrote an epic about a woman visiting the stars, but more than that she wrote many erotic short stories for which she apparently intended to get inspiration from her.

  This was when they got friendlier and Hifumi much bolder in her topics as well as the requests she made of her host.

  Nicola furrowed her brow, recalling re-enactments of their first proper meeting in the dungeon: Hifumi liked to be tied up like that to a suspicious degree, demanding that Nicola lift her chin in various ways and look her in the eyes with a serious, or threatening, or one time even a seductive expression, or even use her rapier’s flat side to turn Hifumi’s head in various directions. It was enough to even reawaken her own sexual appetite, which she considered lost since at least two hundred years ago.

  It was with this sexual appetite that she seized the opportunity and kissed Hifumi while she was tied up, and then anxiously awaited the girl’s response. Given that she acted without thinking, she fully expected a lecture about consent and respecting people’s boundaries, but the girl simply requested her to do it again. And again. And again.

  Despite all that they haven’t done more than said kissing and cuddling so far; even with all her debauched fantasies, Hifumi was a surprisingly sweet girl who would appear innocent for as long as she kept her mouth shut about her writing. Right now, Hifumi was in her underwear, and Nicola was similarly dressed, enjoying simple ‘skinship’ in bed before and while sleeping.

  Nicola gently removed herself from Hifumi’s arms, giving the girl her own pillow as a replacement. She couldn’t help but smile seeing her like this, leaning in to give her a kiss on her forehead before she walked towards the bath.

  ***

  She dumped hot water over her body and began to scrub. She could be attended to by marionettes like a proper ‘lady of the castle’, but she still preferred to do these kinds of things herself. While washing up she changed into Urfin, then into Holda; cleaning her body transferred to her disguises, but she liked the feeling of cleaning each of them individually.

  As she soaped up her body and dumped more hot water over her head, rinsing herself off, she quietly hummed various songs to herself; songs she hadn’t thought about in centuries. Songs which she used to perform with Romy.

  Speaking of Romy, there was a rather large elephant in the room of her relationship with the young writer. She herself sent the young witch Mana Kanno to collect the Amaranth of Mnemosyne’s garden and used it to great effect in her potion to awaken Romy’s soul in Lethe. Yet, even with her missing her beloved so dearly, she never even once felt the temptation to use it on Hifumi to awaken Romy and have her permanently occupy the young writer’s body.

  Of course, she herself declared the act of using it to turn someone into a vessel for their past life’s memories a grave sin in front of Mana, and she meant it; but it was strange nonetheless, how not even once there was a spark of temptation in her heart. Hifumi had Romy’s soul, but Hifumi was Hifumi, with all her own experiences and her little quirks, her own little charm points. Nicola didn’t just love Hifumi because she was Romy reincarnated; she loved Hifumi herself.

  She smiled and placed a hand on her heart, as a warm feeling spread through her, the likes of which she hadn’t felt in a thousand years, like so many other things. Her little moment of peace and quiet got disturbed in a not unwelcome manner as she felt a warm body pressed against her back.

  “You can disguise yourself as a JK, too?!” Hifumi exclaimed excitedly as she squished her own cheek against Nicola’s, rubbing them against each other.

  Nicola chose this disguise a few hundred years ago, basing it on a young woman who she saw on the marketplace one day; apparently Hifumi’s world had a word for that age range.

  She wanted to give her lover a proper answer but stopped herself. Instead, she felt the seed of mischief in her heart and hid a grin from Hifumi, then she started to act, as she so often did.

  ***

  Holda turned around towards the stranger with tears in her eyes, shaking ever so slightly.

  “W-who are you, miss…?” she asked with a quiet voice, looking at Hifumi with apprehension.

  Hifumi blinked and let go of her, even jumping a little backwards.

  “Ah! Eh?! You’re not Nicola?”

  “I’m Holda…” she added a little sniffle, for dramatic effect, sending Hifumi into an even greater panic.

  “Oh! Oh no, I’m so sorry! I swear, I’m not some kind of pervert trying to jump you! Well, I’m kind of a… ah, that’s irrelevant! I mean, I thought you were someone else! I’m so, so sorry! Ehm… why are you in Madame Bille’s bath?”

  Holda sniffled some more, just enough to drive home how scared she was before she pieced together an answer. Hifumi looked like she contemplated whether she should give the girl a hug to calm her down or if that would just scare her even further.

  “My relative works in the castle and I came to visit…”

  Holda buried her face in her hands, turning away from Hifumi.

  “Now I can’t get married anymore…!” an awfully cliché line, but it would serve.

  “Now, now! I’m sorry… I’m so sorry, dear!” Hifumi tried to play the responsible adult. Adorable!

  “Is there any way I can make it up to you? I’m sure I could ask Madame Bille for whatever you could ever want!”

  Holda turned her head towards Hifumi, spreading her fingers apart to peek at the woman. Her tears were gone, and just as Hifumi’s worry made way for confusion, the young weaver Holda poked her tongue out at her.

  “You could apologize by giving me a kiss… a naughty one, please?”

  Holda pulled her hands away and gave her lover an innocent smile.

  “You…! Again?!” Hifumi was befuddled and a little annoyed; she fell for Nicola’s acting a short while ago already, in the first week after their meeting, to be precise. Nicola pranked her as Urfin that time, serving her tea and holding idle conversation while ‘waiting for the mistress to arrive’, and Hifumi only caught on after two hours.

  “You…!” Hifumi exclaimed again, then she surprised Holda by jumping on her, pinning her to the ground. Holda’s eyes widened in reaction to the sudden initiative, then she closed them in bliss and gave herself to the kiss the young writer pressed on her lips.

  “You appear to be in good spirits, Seika.”

  Seika grinned and watched as Madame Bille entered, looking her up and down. The villainess wore a serene smile which looked almost uncanny, given her usual piercing eyes and mysterious expression.

  “I can return those words. You look less ‘mysterious’ and more like a woman who’s the happiest she’s ever been. I trust things are going well with Hifumi? Woah, is that a hickey?!”

  “You’re imagining things, Seika.” Madame Bille responded with a grin she couldn’t hide, all while she quickly lifted a hand to cover the red spot on her neck. She walked around Seika to inspect her shoulder, while an elf mage still pointed both her hands at the office worker, with a magic circle slowly spinning over the wound.

  Seika chuckled to herself in response to the aristocrat’s unusual behavior, then she looked over her shoulder.

  “How’s it looking?”

  Seika felt a finger next to her injury, prodding her bare skin as she sat there with her unbuttoned and lowered shirt, wearing only a bra and the sling for her arm.

  “It is healing well. Hmm… these incisions are new.”

  “Yeah, I had to undergo rotator cuff surgery. Turns out when some green devil jams five knives that she calls fingernails into your shoulder, chances are she’s going to sever a tendon.”

  Seika looked over to the elf who healed her and the two exchanged an awkward smile; this was the drunk woman who approached her and Miori in the beer tent during the celebrations to proposition them for a threesome. Unsuccessfully, though Miori didn’t appear opposed to the general idea.

  “Interesting, and with holes this small they managed to repair your muscle?” Madame Bille inquired with genuine interest.

  “Yes. There’s a lot of fancy tools in our world. Little grabber arms, tiny tubes with cameras on them… I’m not a doctor, so Sayaka would be the one to explain this to you.” Seika kept talking, with Madame Bille listening with interest.

  “Oh by the way, where’s Hifumi? I don’t think she left your place in a while.”

  Madame Bille gently poked Seika’s shoulder, causing her to sharply inhale air, as if to show some possessiveness.

  “She’s in her study, writing.”

  “Wait, how does she charge her laptop?”

  “I’ve come up with an apparatus utilizing lightning attuned magic crystals as a battery and transforming their charge into your world’s electricity, what else?”

  “Should have guessed…”

  Madame Bille sat down next to Seika, looking her in the eyes with a warm expression.

  “And how are things going between you and Miori? Lethe stopped you for nine years from finding each other… there must be a lot of brewing passion between the two of you.”

  Seika looked to the side, grinning bashfully.

  “Haven’t done anything yet. Well, nothing that would count, in my opinion!”

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  “Nothing that would count?” Madame Bille raised an eyebrow at her.

  “We haven’t had sex yet, apart from some over the clothes fondling.”

  Seika grinned, recalling the very drunk Miori after the celebrations in town. She could talk her out of stripping each other and going at it for real, citing her injuries and that she’d like to have their first time together able-bodied, but Miori was like a hungry, lurking beast ever since, handsy and overly affectionate, always a hair’s breadth away from simply pushing Seika down and having her way with her. A lot of times she would try to get Seika to change her mind by caressing all sorts of spots through her clothes.

  “Hm… I assumed you two would be all over each other whenever you had the time. To make your time count, after Lethe stole almost an entire decade from you.”

  Madame Bille grabbed Seika’s left hand and gave it a little squeeze, causing her to look the woman in the eyes.

  “Cherish the time you have with each other. I doubt yours will come to a tragic end like mine did with Romy, but still: live your life without regrets.”

  “I will. Thank you, Nicola.” Seika said, then she cleared her throat.

  “I have a more serious question.”

  Madame Bille nodded. “Ask away.”

  “What was the hammer in your magic chest? It was lost during the fight with Lethe and then picked up by our world’s insurance guys who appeared to be very thrilled by it.”

  Madame Bille pondered a moment before she gave her answer.

  “It’s a copy of Mj?lnir. It should run out of magic energy at some point, though, so I wouldn’t worry too much about someone picking it up.”

  Seika raised a brow.

  “How in the world did you…?”

  “I had a very talented young witch working to retrieve it for me from the world called Yggdrasil.” Madame Bille simply responded with a smile.

  Nicola led Seika to Hifumi’s study and left the two of them alone so they could discuss work. She stepped back into her own workshop and carved another marionette. Some worry clouded her mind, as she stretched out her hand and still saw her corrupted strings dangling from them.

  She could still animate marionettes without experiencing exhaustion, and surprisingly enough, she still had the same amount of control she showed before the curse was broken. She could be injured and possibly killed, but she wasn’t certain about her vitality. What if she remained as youthful as she was now, simply with the added risk of dying from injury?

  She wanted to grow old with her new love. She wouldn’t be able to take it if she was left behind by an aging Hifumi.

  She let out a sigh and leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling as she thought about her situation for a while longer.

  Maybe the root of the curse had to be taken out, instead. This strange being with an eye that looked like the starry sky.

  The universe itself.

  Nicola shook her head and clutched it in her hand; remembering the night of her sacrifice brought her nothing but migraines.

  She worked on animating her wooden soldier, making it walk towards the storage area, while she produced her crystal ball again, placing it on her work bench.

  She was still doing her ‘duty’ as a villainess to provide the Magical Girls of Earth with semi-regular fights to help their growth. Initially, this was a selection process to find girls capable of helping her confront Lethe – and now, it was to nurture these girls and women to be able to stand against much crueler and more powerful foes than anything that broke into their dimension before.

  Her marionette soldiers appeared in Tokyo, and this time they were wielding swords. She gave up on the horror designs as per Hifumi’s request and equipped them like they were soldiers.

  As planned, civilians scattered, with marionettes following them, slashing after them without actually hurting them.

  She checked quickly which Magical Girls were alerted to the presence of her soldiers and found herself pleasantly surprised as she noticed the approach of a familiar figure.

  She did her usual theatrics; one of her marionette soldiers approached a tripped civilian and prepared a deadly strike, only to end up as the first target for the approaching hero. The doll was unceremoniously impaled on a pointed weapon and then dismembered.

  As the remains of the doll were tossed aside, everyone could see who saved them: the Magical Girl Bellona Azure.

  Lethe’s curse being undone brought back memories and should have restored digital and physical records altered by her, but naturally, most people, when confronted with damaged-looking photographs and heavily corrupted digital images would simply get rid of them, meaning that without a paper trail for the blue Magical Girl, everyone except first-hand witnesses were under the impression that she was a new presence in the city.

  Bellona readied her halberd, giving the marionettes a serious look, and with a foe as powerful as her, Nicola saw no reason to hold back.

  October 2024

  ***

  Bellona was conflicted: on one hand she was doing her duty and protecting the citizens from interdimensional threats. But on the other hand, she was now acutely aware that every fight against a marionette was a farce. Madame Bille probably sat in her castle, laughing villainously at how the Magical Girl was forced to play along with her little performance.

  Come to think of it, isn’t Senpai visiting her today to get treatment?

  The marionettes approached Bellona as she was lost in thought, and she saw a crowd gathering. Civilians who were panicking a moment ago now became gawking bystanders. Just what she needed.

  Well, if we must do it anyway, let’s do it right… partner.

  “I’m right with you, Miori.”

  Bellona readied herself, then she blinked in confusion. The marionettes gathered together and got in formation, as one of them reassembled its comrades, creating a new, mismatching creature made from wooden limbs.

  An oversized boar emerged in front of the armored Magical Girl, roaring as the sole remaining marionette climbed on top and pointed its sword at Bellona, openly challenging her.

  “Tch... bring it, then!” Bellona barked its way, and the marionette obliged, riding her way on top of the beast. It was four meters tall and every time its hooves hit the ground it spread cracks, making the ground shake; at least the gawking bystanders realized that the area was dangerous again and scattered.

  Bellona extended her halberd and waited for the creature to draw closer before she summoned a dozen pikes, already stuck in the ground and extending diagonally to the front. The boar crashed into the summoned pike wall, screeching loudly as Bellona jumped aside, swinging her halberd to hit one of its legs. It was thick and her halberd’s axe head got stuck inside, almost dragging her along, if she hadn’t de-summoned it.

  She instead summoned a spear now, chasing after the large boar creature as it threw its head from side to side, running a snake line before it crashed into a storefront. Bellona was right next to it immediately, ramming her spear into the creature’s eye which earned her a deafening roar from it.

  As it flailed around it yanked Bellona around as well, and before long the armored Magical Girl got a rough ride as the boar ran down the street again, with its assailant hanging from a spear shaft embedded in its eye socket.

  Right, there’s no brain to destroy in there...

  As the boar shook its head, Bellona was launched towards one of the nearby buildings. She caught herself with a magic circle serving as a platform before she would have crashed through the windows.

  “I guess I’ll use the big blades for you, then.”

  ***

  Bellona jumped back into the middle of the road. The boar looked at her and dragged its hooves as she prepared herself by summoning another weapon.

  She held a large Zweih?nder in the ready position, above her head, in an upper guard position.

  “Go on! Come at me!” she shouted with a grin, standing upright with one leg firmly planted in front of her.

  The boar, as if it understood her, came charging at her. Its trampling hooves noisily cracked the ground as it aimed its tusks at her and roared, with her spear still embedded in its eye socket.

  Is this going to be sharp enough to cut through it?

  “We won’t have to cut it directly.”

  Bellona opened her eyes in surprise as she felt magical energy flow from herself into her blade. A blue glow surrounded the steel, and she instinctively knew what to do with it. She remained firmly in place as the giant boar approached and waited for the right moment, then she led her giant sword in a downwards slash.

  She would have just uselessly swung her sword through the air, if she hadn’t achieved a new form of power from her continued bond with Bellona proper. With their newfound strength the slash continued through the air like a thin blue blade, passing through the approaching boar in a much wider cut than the sword on its own would have been capable of. The creature kept charging at her like nothing happened, until it finally split into two halves, which slammed into the ground and came to a useless standstill on either of Bellona’s sides.

  So this is why Lethe erased your memories before we could grow stronger.

  The blue Magical Girl looked at her work with a smug grin, dismissing her large sword and summoning a longsword to her side as she saw the marionette rider emerge from the remains of the slain beast.

  It pointed its sword at Bellona, who accepted the challenge, raising her long sword to the right side of her head, blade pointed forwards. Her and the last marionette circled each other, and her mind went back to the rapier duel during the festival.

  That one said it wasn’t holding back, but I get the feeling that it will be tougher if Madame Bille is in direct control.

  The marionette raised its sword into an upper guard like she did before with her Zweih?nder. Bellona tried to seize the opportunity and attack with a quick thrust forward, but the marionette swung down diagonally to intercept her. Bellona took a quick step to her right to turn her thrust into a sideways slash she could rotate around the incoming blade to hit the marionette’s head, but couldn’t do so as her opponent turned to block her head-on. After the noisy ring of metal striking against metal, she reversed her cut, attempting to strike from the other side after rotating her blade above her head. Again, the ring of metal against metal sounded through the streets as the marionette simply turned its upper body and guarding blade to intercept her once more.

  Bellona grimaced and twisted her blade around to push the marionette’s forearms aside as she saw it trying to step to the left and ready for a strike from above. After getting the marionette’s blade away from her, she tried another swing at its head, only to be blocked, and then again as she reversed her cut, repeating the same set of strike, block, strike, block as before.

  Their fight continued like this. Strikes met with parries and ripostes, blades were pushed aside or rotated to try and strike the opponent, but neither of them landed a hit on each other. The ringing of steel filled the streets of Tokyo like it was the Sengoku period. Each exchange of blows consisted of multiple moves and their reactions and counter-reactions while only taking one or two seconds before the combatants broke away from each other again.

  As they separated once more, Bellona held her longsword on her shoulder, angled behind her head, ready to strike.

  As I thought, that marionette at the festival doesn’t compare to one under direct control.

  “The Madame is scarily skilled – if she is indeed controlling this one directly.”

  The marionette assumed a low guard , readying itself, then it suddenly hesitated, as if it was frozen. A swift strike from Bellona beheaded the construct and its head rolled away on the ground.

  Bellona blinked once, then twice. The marionette didn’t even move to block the strike, leaving her utterly confused as some civilians dared to approach and gave her hesitant applause.

  “What was that about?”

  Moon of Rejoining, 1067 AR

  ***

  “Guess who!”

  Nicola couldn’t see, and with the sudden snap transferring through the strings on her controllers she felt that her marionette was slain. Her eyes were covered by none other than her utterly foolish, bumbling, lovely, wonderful lover.

  She would have scolded Hifumi for interrupting her work, but the truth of the matter was that it didn’t matter much anymore. Her giant beast drove Bellona to improve herself, much to Nicola’s satisfaction, turning the duel at the end into self-indulgent entertainment for the puppet mistress.

  She slowly put her marionette controllers down and grabbed Hifumi’s hands, pulling them off her eyes and giving them both kisses on the open palm, then the on the back.

  “Of course it’s you, Hifumi.” She replied with a smile, turning towards her lover.

  “Did you have a nice talk about your book with Seika?”

  Hifumi nodded and leaned in to give Nicola a little kiss on the forehead before she simply straddled her.

  “I’ve been thinking about a second novel series. Seika said that she doesn’t see a problem with letting me write multiple projects at the same time, since I’m already writing fast.”

  Nicola leaned back in her chair, smiling as she looked Hifumi up and down.

  “What do you want to write?”

  Hifumi smirked at her question, raising a finger.

  “I only got the go-ahead for another work, but I still have to submit a first chapter and a synopsis first, so I haven’t talked about this with Seika yet.”

  She leaned a bit closer until her face was right in front of Nicola’s.

  “MagiColle are about to start an R-18 imprint, so I’m going to write an erotic novel! It’s about a young heroine who gets lost in the castle of an evil villainess. She gets caught and enslaved and has to endure being a sexual plaything night after night, with a blooming romance while the maiden uses her position to slowly influence the villainess towards good…”

  Nicola raised an eyebrow as she absentmindedly ran her fingers through Hifumi’s hair.

  “Sounds very familiar.”

  Hifumi winked at Nicola and pinched her cheek.

  “Oh? Does it now? I don’t know… we’re very family friendly here, aren’t we?”

  Her tone was teasing, but there was the hint of an accusation in it, as well.

  Nicola’s eyes widened in realization; she leaned her head back, staring at the ceiling and thinking back to various of their shared moments. After kissing the tied-up Hifumi and being asked to do it again and again, she proposed to untie her, and Hifumi in turn looked disappointed for some reason.

  When they shared the bed and cuddled, she always looked disappointed by something the next morning.

  This morning, after they made out in the bath, as Nicola transformed back and got ready for her day, Hifumi looked disappointed.

  Have one thousand years of solitude made me this dense?

  She quietly chuckled, then she laughed about her own inability to discern her lover’s intentions all this time.

  “…fine, my love. You shall have your inspiration.”

  With that she stood up, supporting Hifumi by her butt and carrying her out of the workshop towards her bedroom as the girl looked up at her with wide, surprised eyes.

  Hifumi lost her ‘innocence’ that day - and night. Whatever was left of it, anyway.

  Dancing on her Strings