April 2025

  ***

  The Ueno Park Cherry Blossom Festival was in full swing, with food stalls lining the paths in regular intervals and a veritable flood of visitors. Seika and Miori decided to go when it was dark, to see the trees and most importantly all their blossoms illuminated by the lights along the path.

  This year they also lines the sides of the roads with lanterns, which spread a golden glow on the path around the park.

  Ayame was busy that day and insisted that the two should have a date between just the two of them once in a while, so Seika and Miori followed through.

  Right now they were enjoying some sweet dango as they slowly walked along the path laid out for visitors. Green cones and barrier tape were used to divide the road into two paths on which visitors could move in opposite directions and the cherry blossoms glowed in white and pink as the streetlamps illuminated them. Seika and Miori held hands as they kept walking slowly and took in the beauty of the display.

  “It’s been a bit since we’ve been on a date with just the two of us.” Miori noted and Seika couldn’t suppress a little chuckle.

  “It was your suggestion that we form a triad with Ayame. Not that I’m complaining…”

  “Oh I’m not complaining, either.” Miori said with a smile, leaning over to plant a kiss on Seika’s cheek – quickly and discreetly, to avoid stares.

  “I’m just saying that I enjoy the time we spend together like this as their own thing.”

  They kept going, reaching a small stage on which a young woman with an acoustic guitar played a heartfelt song about young love, with a little crowd gathering around her. Seika and Miori stopped and listened for a while, still holding hands. They let the music serenade them for a while longer, with Miori getting a bit clingier, wrapping her arms around Seika’s and leaning her head against her shoulder. They remained like this until the song finished, then they continued down the path of illuminated cherry blossoms yet again.

  Seika inspected her handbag and Miori’s in turn, looking at the pins Ayame gifted them a little while ago. Miori’s bag had a pin with a white line in the middle, and to the top and bottom orange and pink stripes of increasing saturation were drawn parallel to the white center. A lesbian pride pin, or so Ayame explained. Seika was vaguely aware of Pride and the rainbow flag, but she never got too much into it, owing to her complete lack of time and her ongoing battle with Lethe. Her own pin had a purple center with a thicker pink and blue stripe on the top and bottom each, which signified her attraction to both men and women, or so she was told.

  “They’re kind of pretty, but I don’t really understand what they’re for.” Seika admitted as she noticed Miori catching her gaze. Miori put a finger on her cheek in thought, then she gave Seika a smile.

  “Ayame said it is important that people like us make themselves visible. The world thinks it can simply ignore us if we stay quiet and make decisions about us without our consent, so it’s our duty to make our presence known, especially for those who are part of an even smaller minority than us.”

  Seika looked at her pin again and tilted her head.

  “To what end?”

  “To be allowed to marry, for starters.” Miori said with an angelic little smile, which only made Seika blush. They kept walking while Seika calmed her racing thoughts. It was a bit too soon to talk about marriage. After all, they only just started dating, and Ayame was in the mix now, as well. Would she really be okay with Seika and Miori taking that step together while she remained the ‘queerplatonic’ friend? Not to mention that it still wasn’t legal, so any thinking about taking that step was wasted time right now, time she didn’t have, with Lethe having stolen nine years of her life already.

  There was however one big step which Seika wanted to talk to Miori about.

  As the two walked along the road that went through the park’s pond, Seika took a long look at the cherry blossoms above them. Their passing beauty was a strong reminder of the short time a human had on Earth.

  ‘Cherish the time you have with each other,’ she heard Madame Bille’s voice in the back of her mind and turned towards Miori, grabbing both her hands with her own.

  “Miori…”

  The blonde’s eyes widened, and for the fraction of a second she looked to the sides in panic before she looked back into Seika’s eyes, gulping heavily.

  “W-what is it, Sen- Seika?” she mumbled, barely able to hold eye contact now that Seika was making a bold move.

  “Do you want to move in together?”

  Miori froze for a moment, then she let out a little laugh.

  “Sheesh, Seika! I thought that little marriage equality talk gave you the idea to propose. You had my heart hammering in my chest!”

  She smiled, squeezing Seika’s hands now.

  “But… regarding your actual question: Of course! Let’s live together!”

  Month of the Red Star, 1322 MC

  ***

  Leyla slowly walked through the large, intimidating halls of the castle. Sometimes, lightning outside illuminated the interior in bright colors through the stained-glass windows, with thunder following immediately.

  Paintings and statues lined the corridors, mostly of the suggestive kind. Bare-breasted women in lascivious poses were depicted on the paintings, often surrounded by demonic temptresses caressing them, while the statues were those of seductive demonic women, bared to the world, wings spread, with a hand extended in invitation. This was it! She was so very close to the Demon King’s throne room; she could almost taste it. She snuck her way past the Demon Kingdom’s army, avoiding detection by utilizing every single trick in the book she knew as a master assassin, while quietly eliminating any demon who got in her way; she would end the Demon King’s tyranny today, once and for all.

  She kept close to the walls and hid in a corner whenever patrols walked by, which were animated suits of armor inside the castle premises, a particularly annoying foe which she couldn’t take out quickly with any of her assassination techniques, so stealth was her friend. She waited, stuck to the ceiling with climbing hooks, until the metallic stomping passed her by, then she slipped further down the corridor. A large double-winged door awaited her approach, and she accepted the unspoken invitation.

  Behind the large door the throne room awaited, empty save for an ornate throne. The figures of many women in various states of undress were carved into its wood and it was covered in red silk, radiating decadence and power – fitting for a king of the hedonistic forces of evil, Leyla pondered.

  Somehow, the throne called out to her: she felt compelled to sit down and await the Demon King like this. She considered the idea for a moment, imagining herself sitting on the throne, mocking her target before striking. A shudder went through her entire being, and somehow it felt right. Like she should sit here and command the entire demonic horde. A laughable fantasy, and yet… she sat on the throne already, blinking as she realized that she moved unconsciously while still weighing her decision.

  The throne was rather comfortable, she had to admit. It was invigorating to sit atop it. It felt like she had the entire world in the palm of her hand. No wonder, then, that the Demon King was driven by an unquenchable thirst for conquest.

  This is stupid. Get up and find a place to hide so you can end this with one strike!

  Leyla wanted to get up, and then she realized in horror that she was bound to the chair. Strange, magical strings, glowing in a red color wound around her body, tying her wrists to the armrests and her upper body snugly against the backrest - even her legs were tied to the throne. She panicked, trying to get her limbs off the treacherous seat, but it was to no avail – even worse, there was a string tightening around her neck the more she struggled. Not long and she kept perfectly still, while her heart was hammering in her chest. She sat there, alone and afraid, for what felt like an eternity, until she finally heard footsteps approach. She knew that she would be in for something worse than death if they captured her alive, but she couldn’t reach her dagger to take her own life, either. If she struggled to make the strings strangulate her, they stopped short of choking her dangerously, as if to mock her attempts to get out of this situation. Finally, a woman stood in front of her. Beautiful and mysterious, with long, silver hair and crimson eyes that glowed in the darkness of the otherwise vacant throne room. She reached out a hand and caressed Leyla’s cheek, then she firmly grabbed her chin and lifted it to force her to make eye contact.

  “There you are, little assassin. The lure of power proved too much for you, it appears.”

  Leyla tried her best to remain stoic in the face of whatever torment awaited her at the hand of this woman – but said woman only let out a laugh.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that. It’s because of me that you even got this far, you know?”

  What? Don’t tell me she is-

  “Coming to end my life, sneaking through my realm… I’ve seen you in my scrying pool long before you even entered the castle. And I allowed you to come in here because…”

  Her hand let go of Leyla’s chin and slid further down. Leyla let out an involuntary moan as she felt the hand tighten around one of her breasts, causing her to once more struggle a little against her bondage.

  “You’re oh so very lucky, little assassin. The Demon Queen herself is interested in you, so instead of filling a mass grave or screaming in my torture chambers, you get to serve me. In rather intimate ways…”

  Leyla’s heart hammered in her chest and conflicting feelings filled her mind, which only got worse as her arch enemy, the very queen of these demonic lands, forced a kiss on her lips.

  May 2025

  ***

  Seika flipped through the manuscript in front of her, clearing her throat ever so often. She sat in a private room inside an izakaya, with her author, Hifumi Ebiko, right in front of her, on the opposite side of the low table.

  Seika tried to distract her racing mind from time to time by grabbing the provided snacks and her eyes involuntarily darted to Hifumi, who grinned awkwardly and looked to the side.

  Usually she’s not that shy about her erotica.

  “The reason might be the person she brought with her.”

  Seika’s eyes wandered a little to the left, and sure enough, there was Nicola Bille. The puppeteer, the villainess, the surprisingly sweet woman who wanted nothing more than to reunite with her lost love and achieved that very same goal.

  Right now she nonchalantly sipped some green tea, dressed exactly the same way as Hifumi. She wore jeans and a band shirt, this one reading ‘Madame War’ in big, stylized letters. Doubtlessly a disguise given to her by Hifumi, as was evident in the way it showed off Madame Bille’s midsection as the one (or two) big differences between the two lovers’ bodies rendered the T-shirt a little too short.

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

  Seika focused her mind back on the manuscript in front of her. The working title so far was ‘I Became the Demon Queen’s Pet’, and up until the halfway point it was an adventure novel about the assassin Leyla, who was hired to kill the Demon King threatening the world of humans. She snuck through enemy lines, won a few impressive fights and made her way into the demonic castle, only to be caught and have the truth revealed to her: the Demon King was a queen, and a very beautiful one at that with an insatiable sexual appetite. Leyla was turned into a slave and used for the Demon Queen’s pleasure, yet at the end of the first volume, in a one-off POV chapter from the Demon Queen’s perspective, love blooms between them, though they aren’t honest about their feelings with each other and continue their game of forced pleasure.

  It was smut that would do well with some yuri demographics and those who were into stories about defeated heroines, however there was one thing that gnawed at the back of Seika’s mind as she read through the sex scenes in particular.

  She lifted her head to stare straight at the two women in front of her.

  “Are you handing me your bedroom diary here?”

  Both Hifumi and Nicola froze. Hifumi even let out a “Hurk!” in surprise and looked away with a flushed face while Nicola attempted to look unbothered and sipped her tea.

  “Hifumi, are you…” Seika groaned and looked at Nicola. “Nicola, did you tell Hifumi to write those smut scenes based on your love life?”

  “Verzeihung, ich spreche kein Japanisch.”

  “That’s not going to work, Nicola, we both have translation magic.”

  The villainess grinned awkwardly in Seika’s direction before she turned her head away. “I didn’t tell her to do anything. She simply writes whenever inspiration strikes her, no matter what form it might appear in. And I’m gladly providing said inspiration.”

  “Is that so?” Seika asked with a little sigh, facing Hifumi again, who looked at her with a sheepish expression.

  “Was it that obvious?” she asked.

  “Well, of course. The Demon Queen’s appearance is a one-to-one proxy of Nicola and besides, the bedroom scenes involve a lot of ‘magic rope’, so I can already imagine how you got that idea.”

  She cleared her throat.

  “Well, awkwardness of me knowing that you actually do those things aside, it's good material and no one else is in the know as I am, so it should be fine to release like this.”

  Seika let out a long sigh, then her face lit up as she grabbed into her bag and got out a little gift-wrapped package.

  “Anyway, it’s May 5th, so: Happy Birthday, Hifumi!”

  “Eh? Ehhh?! You remembered, Seika?” Hifumi looked at the little package with wide eyes and took it in her hands.

  “Well, of course. We’re now friends, not just colleagues.” Seika smiled at Hifumi, gesturing for her to unpack her present, while Nicola looked on with interested eyes. The girl quickly unwrapped her gift and looked at a slightly ornate fountain pen, complete with specialist ink.

  “Ah? Ah?!” Hifumi held the present up with sparkling eyes – and a little bit of confusion, looking at Seika.

  “I thought you might want a fancy pen for your upcoming book signings. Congratulations, Hifumi. ‘The Starfaring Maiden’ continues to be MagiColle’s greatest success. I am fully confident that given a little more time, we’ll receive inquiries about turning it into an anime.”

  Seika offered the young author a genuine smile after her gratulations, watching on as the girl turned around between Seika and Nicola, apparently too stunned to speak for a few more moments until she managed to squeeze out one question.

  “Wait, an anime?”

  “It’s a good possibility at this point, given the sales. Watanabe is looking into getting some companies into a production committee to get the ball rolling, but it’s not a hundred percent certain just yet. What is certain, however, is that you will be doing some book signing in Akihabara in a month. Masked, of course.”

  Seika grinned as she saw Hifumi’s eyes widen.

  “But! Here’s a more important thing for today: As of now, you are twenty years old, Hifumi! Let’s drink!”

  The three of them ordered various kinds of alcohol. They started with beer, which Nicola enjoyed, though she admitted that she had a greater fondness for wine – meanwhile Hifumi didn’t like the taste at all, so they changed it up with highballs. Hifumi liked the taste more, while Nicola thought it a little ‘unrefined’ – her tastes were better served with a sake, which Seika ordered in advance, expecting something like this.

  Either way, alcohol was flowing, and the still very young Hifumi’s first exposure to it was a full-blown drinking party to celebrate her birthday.

  Needless to say, she was quickly drunk, giggling into her glass as she looked around.

  “Lucky me… lucky me…! Surrounded by two beautiful women… lucky me!”

  Not long afterwards, Seika was forced to sit by her side. Hifumi giggled as she was flanked by the two ‘beautiful women’ and leaned against Nicola, nuzzling against her neck. She was out of commission after a few glasses, keeping her cuddling position at her lover’s side with a wide, content grin.

  “How have things been with your lovers, Seika?” Nicola now asked while her hand stroked Hifumi’s hair. She raised another cup of sake to her lips, quietly enjoying it on the way down as she waited for Seika’s response.

  Seika sighed and looked at the ceiling. “I can’t complain about my love life. But Miori and I recently decided to move in together and things are… not looking all that rosy, I have to admit.”

  Nicola tilted her head in response, urging Seika to elaborate with that simple gesture.

  “Right, first things first, I guess.” Seika took a sip from her highball before she continued.

  “Ayame isn’t moving in with us, she said she likes the quiet of her own place more, but she will be over regularly, so we’re still looking for an apartment with a large enough bedroom to fit a bed for three people. That’s already complicated enough, but…” Seika stopped for a moment as she heard the voice of the strange girl from the future in her mind again.

  ‘I’ll see you soon… mama!’

  She shook the thought off and sighed. “We need a guest room.”

  That one was hard to explain to Miori without mentioning the time traveling girl.

  Seika grimaced and thought back to her bumbling explanation why they needed an extra room if they were going to sleep together in the same bed anyway. ‘Maybe we need an office at home at some point,’ Seika remembered herself mentioning. And surprisingly enough, that was the one that convinced Miori.

  “So? What’s keeping you from getting this desired place?” Nicola inquired.

  “Rent and move costs.” Seika replied with a bitter smile.

  “We want a place that’s somewhere between our workplaces, but, well… the places between our jobs are Shibuya and Shinjuku, and the rent is… ugh. We could afford it, pooling together, but we still want to be able to put money on the side, or to have disposable income for our hobbies, you know?”

  Nicola nodded, sampling some more sake. “What determines those prices?”

  “Demand, mostly. If an area is near the heart of the city, if it’s very safe and a lot of people are lining up to live there, the landlords raise the prices as much as they are allowed to by law.”

  “If it’s very safe, hm?” Nicola asked with a little smirk.

  “…what was that expression for?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re planning to do something, aren’t you?”

  “Who can say?”

  “….” Seika didn’t have a good feeling at all about the way Nicola acted.

  “I’m sensing an incursion! Marionettes! …again.”

  Bellona sounded absolutely bored by her announcement, and Miori shared the sentiment. “How many times was that this month?”

  “This is the sixth time.”

  Miori rolled her eyes and grabbed her phone, opening LINE. Two group chats appeared on her screen, one called ‘Girlfriends’, the other ‘Magical Girls’. Seika and Ayame were members of the former, while Seika, Miyu and Momo were in the latter, which was the one she opened now and started typing.

  ‘I’m taking care of it.’

  A few answers came later.

  Miyu: ‘Thank you. We’re currently in a rehearsal.’

  Momo: ‘Kick their butts!’

  Seika: ‘I’m coming with you.’

  Miori stepped out of her apartment, sighing quietly as she transformed and flew in the direction of the recent attack: Yoyogi-Uehara, near the station.

  ***

  For some infernal reason, Madame Bille decided to attack that area repeatedly these past few weeks, assaulting the street crossing right next to the train station. Bellona was joined by Minerva after a short while, who greeted her with a little grin before the two of them flew a little faster together, holding hands on the way.

  The marionettes were predictably doing their routine: they swung at bystanders without hurting them, chasing them away while looking scary, though not as scary as they used to look, now that they weren’t covered in razors anymore. As they noticed the approaching Magical Girls, they got into position, pointing their weapons at them.

  The first two marionettes were shattered on impact as the girls landed in their midst, then a wild brawl broke out.

  Minerva drew her cane sword and engaged the nearest marionette in a duel, almost offhandedly kicking a second one out of the way.

  Bellona utilized her halberd in the meantime, swinging the axe blade and cleaving through three of the wooden assailants. A dozen more were still left standing as Minerva managed to hack her opponent into pieces and followed up by dismembering the one still scrambling to get back on its feet.

  Their work was methodical, almost routinely so. Unless the marionettes transformed into a larger enemy, they were no threat to the Magical Girls anymore, and yet they fought on like they had a chance.

  It only took five minutes until the street was full of severed wooden limbs and the Magical Girls emerged victorious, though they didn’t look happy at all about their victory.

  They flew into the sky and left the piles of wood in the streets behind.

  ***

  “Seriously, what’s gotten into her?” Bellona complained loudly to Minerva as the two stopped on a nearby roof, looking over the city.

  “I thought we were friends, but she keeps harassing us, making us fight her marionettes over and over in the same area!”

  Minerva gently put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down; it took a while but finally Bellona relented with a sigh, simply sitting down on the edge of the building and looking at the roads below. Minerva joined her and the two shared a quick kiss before they watched the city with held hands.

  “I have a hunch why she’s doing this.” Minerva admitted. “I don’t really like it, though. I will contact Hifumi and tell her to talk Madame Bille out of it.”

  Minerva held her hand in front of her gemstone and Seika’s smartphone slowly emerged from it. As she grabbed the device and turned on the screen she blinked. There were a lot of alerts, mostly from the apartment hunting app she installed, informing her of new places that were just listed with rent prices within her budget.

  June 2025

  ***

  Miori couldn’t believe it. They had all but given up on a reasonably big apartment, but here they stood inside one that they just moved into together. It had a combined living/dining room with an open kitchen which was twenty square meters large, with a balcony outside. The view wasn’t spectacular, as they were right in front of the rail lines, but the building’s soundproofing made it unnoticeable. The apartment featured one large bedroom which was nine square meters large and a smaller one at 6 square meters, fitting their requirements exactly. The bathroom and toilet were separated, all the rooms had air conditioning, the kitchen had a pre-installed dishwasher, and the entrance featured its own walk-in closet.

  There was a video intercom, security cameras, auto-locking doors, a parcel locker for deliveries, elevators and a facial ID recognition system for security.

  The house was built this year, and usually the two, while able to afford the rent if they seriously pooled together, would have been priced out of the apartment by all the additional move-in fees, not to mention that money would be tight after rent.

  However, since the region was classified as unsafe by the government due to the common attacks in the nearby streets, applicants for the place dried up. Half the move-in fees were waived and the rent slashed by more than half, much to the annoyance of the owner who was required to lower rent in high-risk areas of interdimensional incursions; while he was being paid compensation rates by the government according to various new laws and regulations regarding interdimensional attacks, he would have still preferred richer tenants.

  Ayame walked into the living room, taking a look around as movers carried a couch and a TV inside; she let out a little whistle.

  “Impressive! You two got a nice love nest for yourselves.”

  “It’s yours, too. For whenever you want to come over.” Miori said with a little grin as she handed Ayame a key, who winked and stowed it away.

  “Well, only as a regular guest. As I said, I like my alone time. And you two are the lovebirds here.”

  Miori pouted a little. “You’re just as important to us as we are to each other, Ayame.”

  Her words were met with a little dismissive wave.

  “I know, I know, Miori. But after all that time you two were kept away from each other? I want you two to have all the time you can get to yourselves. I will drop by; I will date you two individually from time to time. But you two need some time with only the two of you, alright? At least for another year or so, and then we can see how we feel about our little triad, alright?”

  Miori nodded and showed Ayame a challenging smirk.

  “If you do end up properly falling in love with us, you owe me a dress that you design for me and me alone, you hear me?”

  “Pfft. Deal.”

  Seika entered the apartment now, looking like she still couldn’t believe their luck, or like she worried that people might find out that all of this was the work of a villainess they were friends with.

  “So, what do you two say we test out that large bed, once the movers are done?” Ayame suggested with a wide grin.

  Her lewd suggestion was quickly forgotten as the trio heard a familiar voice shouting “Haaaaah?!” from the entrance.

  Right there at the door to their new place was Momo, pointing at them with wide eyes. “Miorin? Seika-paisen?! What are you two, like, doing here?”

  Seika raised a brow and turned to the baffled gyaru.

  “We could ask you the same thing, Momo. We moved in.”

  “And you got, like, a bigger apartment than us, too! We’re, like, one floor below you.”

  Miori exchanged a look with Seika, and she could see the same surprise in her girlfriend’s eyes that she herself felt. Miyu appeared and patted Momo on the shoulder as she passed her by, grinning.

  “We wanted to tell you where we were moving, since we couldn’t afford that luxury apartment anymore, but it looks like you two found us, first. Welcome, neighbors!”

  Miyu beamed a smile like the rising sun as she moved in to give Seika a big hug, then she moved on to Miori.

  “Feels like us moving together as a family,” the idol remarked with a little chuckle.

  Ayame looked around and shrugged with a smile.

  “Well, I’ll go buy a bottle of sake so we can properly celebrate you all moving so close together, hm?”

  Moon of the Light Elves, 1068 AR

  ***

  “So… what did you do?” Hifumi asked, her hands on her hips as she entered Nicola’s study and stared at her with a suspicious expression. The villainess raised an eyebrow and turned around towards her lover, only offering her an enigmatic smile.

  Hifumi looked her straight in the eyes, then she couldn’t hold it in much longer, and her stern expression gave way to a desperate attempt not to laugh as she saw the terrible way in which her lover tried to act innocent. Soon her attempt failed entirely, causing Hifumi’s laughter to fill the room. Nicola joined in and the two shared their laughter for at least two minutes.

  “This is almost too absurd to be real… Using marionette attacks to lower the rent?” she still giggled as she pierced Nicola with her eyes, who nodded and turned towards her work bench.

  “I owe them a debt that can’t be easily repaid, so I’m doing my best to help them in my own way, wherever I can. I attacked the area the Celestial Sisters were picking as their new residence. Now everyone’s a big, happy family, isn’t that quite right?”

  Nicola smirked at Hifumi, who rolled her eyes and walked towards her lover, giving her a quick kiss.

  “You’re a special kind of eccentric. But that’s what I love about you.”