???

  ***

  The path ahead was blurry, and she wasn’t sure if she could hold on long enough. The fusion was a desperate measure against certain death, but with both the mortal body’s heart being destroyed, and the immortal body being shattered into pieces, there was a time limit to how long she could still stay conscious.

  She recognized the white void ahead of her as the dimensional rift, and she noticed that she was being supported by Jove on one side, and by Miori on the other. The tall, hooded stranger whom she knew approached the trio and gave them a long look from under his hood.

  “High King Jupiter. What a rare pleasure, welcome! Your key, please?”

  “I don’t have one, uncle. You know that. Just take me home!”

  “I’m afraid that I can’t quite accommodate your request without the proper presenting of a key.”

  “If I were alone, I could just phase back home, but I have these two with me and it’s an emergency. I would have asked the witch, but I don’t exactly have the ‘dimensional coordinates’, the way Odin could conjure them up with his limitless wisdom. Please, just take me home without making me dance to your tune.”

  “I’m afraid that without following the procedures-”

  “If you grant me this boon, I will officially forgive you for aiding my father’s escape, Janus.”

  She raised her gaze as she heard this name. One part of her remembered it from her primordial core, the other remembered it from her studies. The hooded stranger pulled his hood off his head and revealed two faces on the same head, faced in opposite directions, crowned by glowing, golden hair.

  “If you grant me this, High King, I will gladly be of service to you and offer you free passage through my realm. Today, and for the rest of my days.”

  She admired the figure of the primordial god of beginnings, ends, transitions, time and gateways… of her great-great grand uncle. And then her consciousness slipped.

  ***

  Age of Bronze, Year 322

  ***

  Seika shot upright and gasped. Air filled her lungs and thankfully she felt the typical warmth expected of a living body course through her. She felt like herself again, and she was alive, even though she had no idea how she could be. She looked around with wide eyes as her last memories flashed in front of her eyes: she was fighting a Shadow Empress, but just as she finished, she was stabbed in the heart and collapsed. When she lost consciousness, she was certain that these would be the last moments of her life. All this was followed by a vivid dream of someone who wasn’t Minerva or her, but an amalgamation of them both puppeteering her body. And yet, she now found herself in a strange room with painted stone walls, on a strange bed which appeared to double as a recliner. Right next to her was a strange man, with glowing hair, which was emitting a grass green glow, and his eyes a blue one. He inspected her, grabbing her chin and turning her head from side to side, then he looked into her cleavage, tracing a finger between her breasts. Seika wanted to protest about the inappropriate way he was touching her, but then he let go and uttered a single “Good.”

  “What… what is good?”

  “Your heart has healed completely. Though, naturally, you’re still carrying Princess Minerva’s shards inside and will continue to do so until she has fully recovered.”

  “Heart… completely healed? Minerva’s shards?!”

  “It’s a feat almost on par with bringing someone back from the dead. You owe me a Gorgon’s vein for that, by the way.”

  “A… what? What?!” Seika ruffled her hair as the sheer confusion overwhelmed her and found it to be glowing like she was transformed, only adding more to her confusion.

  “Don’t let Vejovis confuse you, young Magical Girl,” the voice of Jove came from behind her, and she turned around, facing him. He looked apologetic, but other than that, he was exactly as she remembered him, wizard robes and all, and even with both arms, even though he lost one earlier in her vivid dream.

  “First off, Seika, let me apologize to you: I meant to help you against that creature called Lethe.”

  He grimaced. “It appears when we visited your world to help you, she expected our arrival and sneakily made us forget about it all. It came back to us last year, after you defeated her, and at that point, there was no reason left for us to appear in front of you, especially with all the added embarrassment.”

  Seika only half-heartedly listened to the god in front of her. She swallowed heavily as her eyes darted around.

  “Where is Miori? Is she safe?”

  “She is safe and sound. She’s carrying Bellona’s shards in her heart the same way you do Minerva’s. Do you want to see her?” Jove offered her a smile and his hand, and Seika immediately took it.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  ***

  They walked through a stone hallway, lined with statues and marble columns. Seika now noticed that she wasn’t wearing her office clothes anymore, but a light, white dress, which felt nice and breezy in contrast to the warm air which blew through the halls. Her feet were sandaled, and she was missing a little bit of the height her usual heels gave her. Mosaics on the wall depicted various scenes from this place’s history which Seika wasn’t familiar with, and some which she was. The first mosaic was an all-black image, and the next one a pristine planet. The next image showed multiple people. A man with two faces, a beautiful, voluptuous and motherly looking woman, a regal-appearing man and two beings of darkness.

  The next image she recognized from her research about Minerva. The regal looking man was lying on the ground in surrender, while another man pushed a black scythe to his groin. The mutilation of Uranus by Saturn, at least that was the name of a painting this mosaic resembled, but she was certain that the inhabitants of this world would call the regal man Caelus instead. More than that, she recognized the scythe as the one the Dream Empress was wielding.

  “That woman who almost killed us… she must have had help from here,” she mused, and Jove looked at her for a moment, putting a finger to his lips.

  “Don’t speak about such conspiracies out loud. You never know who’s listening. A lot of our kind are very fond of spying on confidential talks while assuming the shape of an animal.”

  “Wonderful,” Seika commented with a sigh. They finally left the building, and she could take in the sights. They stood in what appeared to be an oversized ancient forum. Giant marble columns, possibly in circumference equal to how large a castle with garden would be at home, rose far above. Seika’s eyes went wide as she recognized that she couldn’t see the sky, instead there was a large stone roof, painted to give the impression of a mildly clouded sky instead. The oversized building fit a whole city inside, and many smaller buildings lined the great hall. Most of them simple stone houses, others magnificent mansions or temples. The buildings belonging to people who were obviously more important than the rest also had large statues depicting their inhabitants.

  “Seika!” two voices shouted. Seika turned her head to the side just in time as she was tackled and hugged by both Miori and Ayame. Miori looked different. Her facial features, expressions and behavior were the same as ever, but instead of her blonde hair she now had the blueish purple of Bellona, while her eyes glowed in a golden color.

  “I’m so glad you’re alive! I… we thought we lost you!” Miori said through a suppressed little sniffle. Ayame took her turn after, hugging Seika hard and giving her a kiss on the forehead.

  “You just had to go and fight some monster alone, didn’t you? You hero-brained, idiotic… ugh, I’m so glad you’re alright!”

  Seika smiled and touched Ayame’s shoulder, who cleared her throat and addressed both her lovers now.

  “Right, I’ve been back home for a moment to talk to Sayaka. She’ll tell your families that you both were involved in an accident and are out of commission for a few weeks. So that they can tell your employers.”

  Seika blinked, looking at Miori, who appeared to share her confusion. Both sought answers by looking at Jove who nodded.

  “Good. You will need to stay in this world for a few weeks, so that my daughters can mend. And while you’re already spending that time here, I will have you both undergo training. Thanks to that curse’s meddling over the past decade, both Minerva and Bellona are still in their immature forms. You will see to it that this changes.”

  He paused and took in his guests’ confused looks.

  “In short, you two are going to get stronger.”

  July 2025

  ***

  The warehouse was eerily quiet. Miyu had already patched herself up enough to hobble out of the place in her Magical Girl form to get proper healing elsewhere, and in the chaos neither her nor Momo remembered to check on the elf on the ground.

  A rift in reality opened next to her and the Dream Empress fell through the gaping wound, with smoke rising from her outfit. She remained on her knees for an extended time, taking deep breaths before she pulled off her mask. Maria was singed in various places, only spared from death by her superhuman resilience which Morpheus bestowed upon her with her wings. She slammed a fist on the ground and gritted her teeth in anger. Then, after contemplating her situation for a moment, she laughed.

  “Whatever… I dropped that bitch and she is dead!”

  She slowly stood up on her feet and let out a sigh, then she turned her head to look at Taenya.

  “How long are you going to keep playing dead? If Triple-Eye get here in a moment, they’ll bag you and then they will cut you into tiny pieces to sell you to rich old men who think they can get your longevity by eating you. Or… whatever it is they do.”

  The elf opened her eyes and grimaced. Blood seeped out from between her clenched teeth.

  “You can see that I’m in no state to move on my own,” she coughed out, with a little gurgle underneath.

  Maria let out a long, theatrical sigh in response.

  “Right, right. Sorry, my bad!” she exclaimed as she walked around Taenya, dragging the tip of her scythe over the ground. As she finished a whole circle, a portal opened and Taenya fell through. Maria could hear the pained groan of the elven assassin as she fell into a bed in the High Enchantresses’ castle. The hospital wing of the castle, to be precise.

  “That wasn’t necessary,” she heard Taenya gurgle and chuckled before she jumped through the opening and sat down next to her as a healer began treating the assassin with magic.

  “What happened to you anyway?” Maria inquired.

  “The singers haven’t just stolen the mistresses’ enchantments… they modified them,” Taenya let out with a growl. “They caught me unaware by having the moon warrior wield her weapon in daylight.”

  “Hm, so you failed to kill your half of Earth’s defenders,” Maria declared with a shrug. “But, no matter, what now? Now that my revenge is complete, I am not entirely sure what to do.”

  Taenya gave her a long look before she responded.

  “With Earth’s strongest defenders gone, we will move forward with our plan. After gathering our strength for a few months, we will move to invade.”

  “Right, right, your solution to your food shortage. Did you ever try that fertilizer I brought over?” Maria asked nonchalantly.

  “Our fields are cursed. Only sparse amounts grow, even with your ‘fertilizer’. It’s a magical drought, not something that can be solved with your world’s science.”

  Maria shrugged. She didn’t particularly care about the other people on Earth, so she saw no issue with siding with these strange elves. They helped her get her revenge, after all. In fact, now that she thought about it, allying with an invading host and taking her share of prisoners and loot sounded like the perfect thrill to her, the ultimate payback against a world which denied her the pleasure of her own dreams for the longest time. She also couldn’t deny some curiosity at the thought of battling militaries of Earth with magic.

  “Let me know when you’re ready to move. Until then, I will return to my world.”

  (Volume 4 End)