July 2025

  ***

  “This isn’t working, either…” Mana complained, putting the headphones back on the rack. Her cat ears twitched, and they drew the attention of everyone walking past her in the store. From what she could tell, a lot of girls with colorful hair like hers would slowly develop similar characteristics, but it would take them much more time, as they were only exposed to magic via interdimensional incidents leaking said energy into their world. Mana, on the other hand, immersed herself in all sorts of magical worlds, which accelerated her mutation to its final stage, making her the first human with animal ears on top of all her other achievements, and thus made her stand out that much more.

  Arisu let out a long sigh, putting a hand on Mana’s shoulder.

  “You will have some in the future that work with your ears. I’ve seen them.”

  “Well, that doesn’t help me now, does it?” Mana grumbled. She liked to listen to music and in general liked to watch videos or play games with headphones without bothering anyone else, but now she couldn’t. Ear pods worked, sort of, but the issue was that her cat ears were much more sensitive than her old, still existing human ears. She could have earplugs in her human ears, but her cat ears were still actively perceiving her surroundings at much greater intensity than her human ears were ever able to. It was surprisingly useful if she wanted to put on some music as background noise while still being aware of her surroundings, but it made immersing herself in games or music impossible. On the other hand, plugging ear pods directly into her cat ears was very uncomfortable, or even painful. If she could make over-ear headphones work for her cat ears alone, however, she would probably have a good solution for that issue.

  Her tail, surprisingly, turned out to be the least problematic of her bodily changes. Whatever clothes she wore could be adjusted by her mother, who was a seamstress and gladly helped her daughter with this problem. She only had to make sure that she wasn’t using chairs with solid backrests anymore, to leave some space for her tail to hang from the back.

  “Mh… I don’t think anything from the store will help, Mana. Maybe you can ask in one of your other worlds?” Arisu suggested.

  “I’m already asking a whole lot of the scientists of Thirram to keep Marisa contained… no, I’ll find a way in our world. It will probably help other people who are mutating as well if I solve it myself.”

  Arisu nodded and gave Mana a radiant smile, which made Mana blush.

  “Uhm, Arisu…”

  “Yes?”

  “Today’s your final visit, isn’t it?”

  Arisu nodded, stepping a little closer.

  “It is. But I’m going to be born, soon! You don’t have to worry.”

  “We’re going to start over, though. And before we get together, we…”

  “I know.” Arisu smiled and gave Mana a hug. “But right after, things are so, so good, Mana…! Just be strong, okay?”

  Mana sighed and nodded, showing Arisu a weak smile before she reached out and patted her head, then they walked through the store’s aisles.

  “Well, want to go somewhere special for our final date, then? We can only go to karaoke so many times before…”

  Mana bumped into someone and bowed her head to apologize, but as she lifted it again, she stopped dead in her tracks. The woman who turned around and faced her had blonde, dyed hair and wore a carefree expression. She wore a stylized schoolgirl uniform despite being university aged, and as she recognized Mana she grinned and gave her a little wave.

  “Ya-hoo, Manyan!” Momo greeted her.

  “Uhm… h-hello, miss M-momo,” Mana stuttered, and she saw Arisu’s eyebrow rise from the corner of her eye. Momo kept her family name under wraps in front of Mana to not even give her the opportunity to address her formally. This didn’t do much to alleviate Mana’s nervosity around her, however; this was Luna, of the Celestial Sisters, the world-famous idol and Magical Girl duo. She saw her crying on Madame Bille’s couch once, and then she met her in Madame Bille’s castle again, together with Sol, or Miyu, who was getting her leg healed while Mana delivered her report about the Light Elves’ plans. She recalled Madame Bille’s words after she finished her report.

  ‘Earth’s greatest defenders, Minerva Crimson and Bellona Azure, are in another world for however long their business takes. Luna and Sol will protect your city in their absence, but make sure to lend them a helping hand in whatever capacity you’re able to, young Witch Queen.’

  Right now, a group chat called ‘Magical Girl B-Team’, named such by Momo, included Mana, and from time to time the blonde tried to chat with her personally, but no matter what, Mana was incredibly nervous about having the attention of such a super celebrity.

  “So, who’s your girlfriend here?” Momo asked with a wicked grin and Mana wanted to sink into the ground. Meeting someone Arisu knew, or would know, was a worst-case scenario for her outings with her girlfriend from the future. However, Arisu grinned and stepped forward.

  “Yep! I’m her girlfriend. I’m Arisu!” she declared boldly, much to Mana’s horror.

  “Ahaha! Well, look at that! You got yourself, like, a cutie!” Momo responded and reached out to pat Mana’s head, right between the ears. Mana covered her head with both hands and gave Momo a pouty look, who relented right after.

  “Ah, yeah, sorry, sorry! Those are sensitive and you, like, don’t like it when people you don’t know that well touch them, right?”

  Mana nodded. Of course, that was only a small part of it. Having her head pat by the Luna accelerated her heart rate to unhealthy levels, but hell would freeze over before she admitted that in front of said woman, or in front of her girlfriend for that matter.

  “Anyway, what were you two doin’ here? Shopping for somethin’?” Momo gave them a warm smile and Arisu nodded, stepping to the front before Mana could even say anything.

  “We’ve been looking at headsets, to see if Mana can use any of them! Not just her, but someone she likes and who has the same problem right now,” she simply admitted to the gyaru, who rubbed her chin and gave Mana a long, ponderous look.

  “Hmm… yeah that sounds, like, a serious problem. Maybe we can…”

  She interrupted herself as her phone vibrated, and, oddly enough, Mana’s vibrated, too. Mana had a hunch what that meant, fishing her phone out of her pocket at the same time as the gyaru.

  “Manyan… why don’t you skip this one and enjoy your date with Arichan?” Momo suggested with a little smile, and Mana furrowed her brow as she looked at the text, with Arisu looking over her shoulder.

  ‘Reality hole above the Arakawa. There’s water coming through, so probably a repeat of two years ago. I’m already on my way, meet you there.’

  “Eh? Are you kidding?! That sounds more exciting than just going to karaoke!” Arisu declared with a wide grin, and Momo gave her a thoroughly confused look, together with Mana.

  ““Huh?!””

  The banks of the Arakawa River were dotted with fields for various sports, though baseball dominated them all. Quarter-circle shaped dirt patches stretched from North to South along the river’s line, providing ample space for people of all ages to play sports together. One of them, however, turned into a pit of mud as a hole in reality hovered above. A torrent of sea water cratered the field and carried the dirt into the river, while a large, wooden structure kept pushing against the ring in reality from the other side, occasionally blocking the water from coming through, before it happily sloshed through the hole again.

  Mana and Arisu looked on, standing on a barrier above the tear in reality, with the Celestial Sisters hovering in the air, looking at the hole with some annoyance.

  “Last time we encountered this thing I got shot in the head,” Sol commented dryly, rubbing her forehead as if she could still feel it. She then looked towards Mana, and, finally, Arisu, who stood next to her in her ‘transformed’ state, with green glowing hair and her exposed crystal eye.

  “…who’s that?” she asked with a raised brow, looking at Luna.

  “Did you seriously involve not just Mana, but also some other Magical Girl?”

  “Nu-uh! I told them to sit it out and enjoy their date, but apparently Arisu thinks this is a more exciting thing to do as a couple!”

  “A couple?” Sol looked at Mana and Arisu with raised brows and was met with an awkward grin from the cat-eared witch.

  “Well, they look adorable.” Sol said with a little sigh, accompanied by a smile before she looked back at the problematic hole in reality. “So, how are we going to get rid of this? As we saw two years ago, shooting a fireball will only rip the tear wide open.”

  “Maybe we can squeeze through and take out the pirates before they manage to come through?” Luna suggested.

  “Yes, go ahead, Luna. Get crushed between multiple tons of wood and a tear in reality,” Sol grumbled, flying closer to the hole and inspecting it. She flinched backwards as the ship rammed against it again and narrowed her eyes.

  “It’s widening.”

  “Ugh, that’s not good! We have to do something, Sol!”

  “We could let it come through and deal with it once it’s on the water. Right now, the water isn’t doing any damage, and it would go straight into the river,” Sol suggested.

  “That’s not very heroic, is it?” Luna countered and Sol let out a long sigh.

  “Uhm!” this one was Arisu, raising a hand. All eyes were on her.

  “I can see which world that ship is coming from, so…”

  ***

  Period of Warm Winds, 1478 in the Era of Plunder

  ***

  “Really? This world?” Mana was utterly confused as her and Arisu left the portal, hovering above what looked like a galleon, ramming a small portal in the middle of the ocean to slowly widen it. Granted, this could be any ocean in any world, with tropical islands all around, but she could feel it. She had used these coordinates over and over in the past two years, and the feeling coursing through her when using her spell book didn’t lie.

  “Never expected that interdimensional attacks could be coming from here,” she spoke to Arisu, who patted her shoulder, and the two idols joined them, floating through the open Portal Mana created mere moments ago.

  “Woah. This is convenient. Sure beats going through that strange white space with the creepy hooded guy. He’s friendly, but still makes me uneasy, you know?” Luna babbled on, while Sol assessed the situation.

  “Looks like he got himself a new ship,” she commented. Indeed, the galleon below them looked pristine. Its sails were dyed black, but not tattered like the last time, as far as Mana could remember from the TV reports, while the ship itself was painted in vibrant colors. Mana could see skeletons moving around on deck, dressed in sailor’s garb, fulfilling all the duties one could expect from them to perform on a ship, be it swabbing the deck, adjusting the sails for the next ramming action, or readying the cannons to prepare for battle. What worried Mana, however, was a group of skeletons in black robes near the bowsprit who chanted something.

  “Landlubbers ahoy, they took the bait hook, line, and sinker!” a voice boomed out from the galleon, and before Mana could react, the black-robed sorcerers pointed their skeletal hands towards Mana’s portal. Blue energies shot from their fingertips and encased the portal, then they pointed their hands at the smaller tear in reality right in front of their ship. The swirling energy gate crackled and widened all of a sudden, showing the bank of the Arakawa River, with its one ruined, muddy baseball field right in front of it. A much greater volume of sea water left through the portal and the pirate ship slipped right through. The group of Magical Girls and the witch could hear a loud splash, caused by the galleon landing in the slick mud of the baseball field, then slowly sliding towards the open river.

  “They wanted us to come through to trace the spell?!” Mana shouted, offendedly so, even.

  “Well, after them!” Luna commanded. The magical girl duo immediately flew after the galleon through the open portal and Mana, being unable to fly, had to use her portal spell to keep up. Arisu followed her, and they hopped through portals and on barriers, using them to keep up with the pirate ship which now sailed down the Arakawa River.

  “Ahoy, ye landlubbers of ‘Tokyo’! Me name’s Captain Crossbone, and I’m back again to plunder yer riches and sink yer vessels!” the voice of the skeletal pirate captain could be heard, amplified by a primitive megaphone. Mana grimaced as a strange pain split her skull and she held her head, with her thoughts racing.

  “This is weird…” she mumbled with a little groan.

  “What is?” Arisu looked at her, jumping along the platforms to accompany her, even though Mana was a hundred percent certain that the demigod could fly.

  “I remember my past life in that world they’re from, and there were no rumors, tales or legends of undead pirates. The concept didn’t exist at all!”

  “Any tales of curses?” Arisu inquired. “Like treasure that turns you into undead if you remove even a little bit of it, and the curse remains until you return the gold.”

  “No, nothing like that,” Mana shook her head, then she furrowed her brow, looking Arisu in the eyes.

  “…you got that idea from a movie, didn’t you?”

  Arisu poked out her tongue. “My mom has some old movies lying around, not just anime.”

  “Right…” Mana sighed and looked at the ship, while her thoughts about undead pirates kept troubling her. Luna and Sol in the meantime caught up. Luna positioned herself above the ship and started a bombardment of fireballs, but they were deflected by a magic barrier around the ship, causing the idol to let out a frustrated groan.

  “Well, at least they’ll be trapped here, and we can pick them off,” Sol observed and pointed to one of the bridges spanning the river. It sat at a rather low height, without a lifting mechanism, which wouldn’t allow for ships bigger than a sports yacht to pass through.

  “Right… guess we’ll board. Sit back, kids!” Luna announced with a grin towards Mana and Arisu, who met her patronizing words with an eye roll.

  “No way… we’re coming with you!” Mana declared and pointed her hand towards the ship, furrowing her brow.

  “Ah… I can’t directly get on board with a portal. Figures.”

  She undid her barrier, and both her and Arisu tumbled down towards the ship. Mana summoned another barrier right above the ship and caught her descent with the Break spell, then she touched down on the deck. The Celestial Sisters followed, with Sol readying her spear and Luna summoning small fireballs into her hands.

  “Once we’re aboard, our magic will work! That’s what happened last time!” she announced to her two younger companions and let loose, hitting one of the masts with a fireball and setting it ablaze.

  “Cap’n! We’re bein’ boarded!” a skeleton shouted with a shrill voice.

  “By the Leviathan! Repel boarders, you scurvy dogs!” another voice replied, deeper and raspier. Another sudden headache plagued Mana as she heard that voice, and she gritted her teeth, fighting through the strange sensation. Skeletons in pirate clothes approached, brandishing cutlasses and flintlock pistols. They threw themselves against Sol, while Luna created barriers around her partner. The first set of blows was deflected, with lead projectiles scattering over the ground as Sol wound up for a wide, sweeping strike. Skeletons’ rib cages were separated from their lower bodies and their heads popped off as the Magical Girl idol of the sun cleaved through their masses, then more were dismembered as Luna shot magic missiles their way. Arisu joined the melee with a worryingly gleeful laugh as she punched one robed skeleton’s head clean off and kicked another back, making it hit the railing and tumble off the ship Mana stood in the middle of the carnage, feeling a little lost as everyone was fighting the skeletal crew. She saw the presumed captain at the helm, still steering the vessel. The throbbing headache Mana had since this whole ordeal started got more intense the longer she looked at him, so she averted her eyes after a few moments.

  “Bloody hell, the landlubbers are puttin’ up a fight! But that’s the best thing about bein’ bony fellows like me and me hearties: we can just get right back up for more!”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The moment he spoke those words, the bisected and decapitated remains of skeletons sprang into action, crawling back towards one another to reassemble themselves. The one made to fall overboard emerged behind the railing, clinging to the hull and staring at Arisu with its hollow eyes. Sol and Luna looked around, speaking a quiet curse each.

  “Whatever! You’re going to snap your mast soon!” Luna declared while she blasted away a few skeletons, which nosily fell down on the deck, then she pointed towards the approaching low bridge. The ship’s captain didn’t appear to be too impressed by that.

  “Ah, this little obstacle… one moment!”

  Mana and Arisu almost lost their footing as the ship was suddenly rocked, and its bow pointed downwards into the water. Both the young girls and the Magical Girl idols watched helplessly as water rushed their way.

  “Everyone alright?” Mana asked, straining to keep her barrier spell up. She extended it in six directions, encasing their entourage in a cube of invisible energies which held back the water around them. The skeletal pirates surrounded them and gave them mocking looks, while the captain continued the vessel’s voyage unbothered.

  “What the hell is this?!” Luna shouted, and Mana could hear the gyaru break through the dazzling idol’s kayfabe.

  “A submarine galleon?! How dare you! Get over here, I’ll kick your ass!”

  Mana raised an eyebrow at Luna, as did Sol and Arisu. The idol in black blushed a little and cleared her throat.

  “Sorry… I’m passionate about these ships,” Luna mumbled, then she blinked and stood up, pushing her face against one of the barriers and looking around.

  “Something’s not right…!” she whispered, and the group looked at her with palpable confusion.

  “The Arakawa’s not that deep!” she looked towards the group and made a strange face as no one appeared to understand what she was getting at.

  “Look up! Even the top of the mast is in the water. A ship like this can be more than fifty meters tall from the hull to the mast!” Luna turned around to the rest of the group, and Arisu stepped forward. She narrowed her eyes and scanned the deck in front of them, then she simply looked at the water all around them.

  “It’s still Earth, but also not. This is like… a pocket dimension?”

  At that moment the ship rocked again and light came closer from above, until the ship broke through the water’s surface. They were back in Tokyo, or, rather, its bay, having skipped the low bridges of the Arakawa entirely.

  “Oh come on! That was our opportunity to dismantle this ship bit by bit while it’s stuck!” Sol groaned as she looked around.

  “Too bad, lassies, but me mighty ship can sail on waves of its own make!” the skeletal captain declared with a loud laugh, and the skeletal crew joined in. Sol gave Mana a signal with her fingers and Mana collapsed the barriers around the group. All hell broke loose as Luna tossed fireballs, Arisu shot light arrows and Sol cleaved through the masses of skeletons with wide swings of her spear. Of course, the skeletons’ remains never remained on the ground long, crawling towards each other to reassemble themselves. Sol stomped her foot down on some bones and ground them into dust, grimacing afterwards

  “This works, but would take way too-”

  A deafening thunder interrupted them as the ship’s cannons went off. The cannonballs shot towards the long row of hotels which covered one side of Tokyo Bay, hiding a certain world-famous mouse’s theme park behind them. Mana was too stunned by the initial volley to react, then her eyes widened in shocked realization and she tried to use Barrier, but the cannonballs were already out of range.

  Just as cold horror gripped her heart, imagining the impact in the hotels and the resulting loss of human lives, multiple magical barriers were erected that intercepted the projectiles, making them bounce off uselessly and plummet into the water. Luna had abandoned her position on the ship and flew right after the cannonballs to intercept them with her magic, giving the group on the deck a thumbs-up with a strained smile right after.

  She remained in position, flying along the side of the ship to intercept any further shots. She fished her phone out of her pocket, however, and typed away frantically.

  Mana’s phone vibrated, and she quickly read the text Luna sent her.

  ‘These ships have their powder storage way below deck, at the lowest level in the centermost storage room. If you can somehow light a fuse to blow it up, we can blow all the skeletons away at once.’

  Mana looked up from her phone and nodded Luna’s way before she faced both Arisu and Sol.

  “I’m looking for the powder storage.”

  “You WHAT?!” was the prompt response from Sol, who bisected yet another skeleton before she turned around.

  “No way I’ll let you do something like that on your own! You’d just blow yourself up!” she shouted her way, and Mana let out a snort in defiance, stepping closer to the idol.

  “I’ll have you know that I almost incinerated a witch king with the power of a star! I bent myself into multiple dimensions by pulling a pocket dimension into itself! A little bit of black powder is nothing!”

  “You’re just a kid with a big head on her shoulders!”

  “Well you’re just-”

  “Would you stop it already?!” Arisu shouted at both of them, and the bickering duo turned her way. Arisu used a blade of green energy from her wrist to slice more approaching skeletons and grimaced.

  “I’ll go with her! Keep them from following us!”

  Mana and Arisu quickly sprinted down the stairs in the main deck, right down to the gun deck. One skeleton followed them, but carelessly bumped its head against the ceiling as it took the steps too fast, causing its detached head to fall down the stairs with a terrible noise.

  Of course, the gun deck had its own set of skeletons, which were busy shouting orders at each other, carrying cannonballs, compacting black powder in the barrels of the heavy cannons, and, of course, lighting fuses to fire their guns towards the hotels again and keep Luna busy. The clattering skull didn’t even make enough noise to catch their attention. Arisu blasting one of them with a wave of green energy did, however.

  “We could have snuck through!” Mana complained, and Arisu gave her an apologetic grin in return.

  “Sorry! He looked wide open.”

  Mana rolled her eyes, summoning a barrier in front of Arisu and catching a stray bullet from a skeleton officer’s flintlock before it would have hit the glowing girl, then she retaliated with a large Blast wave, sending a dozen skeletons flying.

  “You’re a bit of a dummy, but I love you regardless,” she commented with a faint grin and got a kiss on the cheek in return.

  “Go ahead. I’ll cover you while you work on the powder store,” Arisu replied with slightly flushed cheeks.

  Mana nodded and ran towards the hatch behind which she expected the black powder. She stopped in her tracks for a moment as she contemplated how dry everything was despite the ship’s earlier submarine action. She looked around as she descended the stairs.

  I wonder if the inside of the ship is protected by some kind of spell… I’d love to study it, if we weren’t fighting right now.

  She dropped into a dark room, with the only light coming from a lamp somewhere beyond the hatch. She could hear Arisu letting loose against the skeletons, letting out shouts and laughs while bones rattled over the floor and cracked.

  “She’s having way too much fun with this…” Mana mumbled as she looked around. The smell and the sight in front of her left no doubt: this was the powder storage, and a spark would send the whole ship flying. Now she only had to find a fuse.

  She rummaged through the shelves, putting aside packed charges of powder and furrowed her brow, attempting to find anything she could use to blow this place up while leaving enough time for her to leave.

  “Lookin’ for these, lassie?”

  A bundle of fuses was held right next to Mana’s face.

  “Uh… thanks. Drop the pirate accent though, it’s silly,” she answered, reaching for them. They were immediately yanked out of reach, and only now her mind registered that whoever was talking to her was not Arisu. The voice was too low, raspy and manly for that. The reality of her situation dawned on her fully as a cutlass was held to her throat.

  “…I’ve been buildin’ this new ship for too long to let a runt like you blow it to smithereens!” the pirate captain spoke, drawing closer. Mana’s hand twitched and she almost retaliated with one of her flame arrows, forcing herself to remember what kind of location she was in, instead.

  “We’re at a bit of an impasse here, aren’t we, lassie? Can’t risk sparkin’ by swingin’ this here cutlass around, and you can’t use yer stupid magic. If me ship blows to high heaven, I will survive, but it will be long and annoyin’ to get me ship back in shape.”

  “What do you want in this world?!” Mana growled at him, angrily. The commotion was still ongoing up above, so Mana surmised that Arisu was still fighting and had been too distracted to notice the captain sneaking past her.

  “Just some good old plunder, what else?” the skeleton captain laughed, but then he stopped and held his head.

  “Bloody hell, lookin’ at yer face makes me head throb for some reason.”

  He stopped and looked like he took a deep breath, despite the uselessness of the gesture.

  “Ah, whatever. A squeeze to yer throat will do the job, and then I can get back to it!”

  That was the moment he flew backwards, away from Mana. Blast had no sparks or fire, making Mana feel a little more confident in using it against the skeletal captain.

  He crashed into the shelves holding the powder charges, and Mana coughed and hacked heavily as black powder flew in the air, swirling all around her.

  “Gaaaah! Why does me head hurt lookin’ at ye, voodoo wench?!”

  The skeleton captain rose to his feet after gathering his bones and stumbled her way, while Mana picked up the fuses he dropped and avoided him, all while tying them together.

  “I don’t know! Just leave me alone!”

  “I’ll not have ye blow me precious ship up just like that, lassie!”

  “You’re getting distracted, Captain,” a new, feminine voice announced, and Mana’s blood froze in her veins. The feeling was familiar, the same she had when she made eye contact with the strange, thin woman in the High Enchantresses’ world.

  A figure emerged from the shadows, completely covered in a dark robe. Mana thought she could see a faint, dark green glow under the figure’s hood, but her face was well hidden behind a skull mask.

  “M-mistress Mors… wh-why are you…” the skeletal pirate fell on his knees, staring at the strange figure.

  “Foolish creature. I sent you out here to lure in and kill the abomination once it showed its face, but it appears your obsession with plunder and adventure is imprinted far too deeply, and instead you’re too occupied with saving your ship, rather than having your forces focus on the task at hand.”

  Mana took several steps back and felt her heart hammer in her chest. The strange figure’s presence was overwhelming and spread a feeling of dread throughout her entire being. She could only watch as the hooded woman reached out a hand and hovered it above Crossbones’ skeletal face. The pirate captain screamed, and his body jerked around, but the process stopped as fast as it had started.

  “Let me die…” the skeleton said. The voice was small and pathetic, completely different from the boisterous captain he was before.

  “No,” came the simple answer from the hooded woman, ‘Mors’, as the captain called her.

  “As I told you before, ‘Captain’: your soul is mine to command however I please. You signed away the right for a proper death when you hanged yourself. However, your unconscious impulses are making it exceedingly hard to steer the minion I’ve turned you into towards the right course. If you don’t cease to follow your foolish desire for ‘plunder’ and ‘adventure’, I may have to take… drastic measures.”

  A whimper followed, and the hooded woman simply let out a disgusted sounding sigh before she tossed the captain aside, who remained lying on the ground.

  “I guess I’ll have to do everything myself.”

  One of the sleeves of her hooded robes was raised, and a thin, almost skeletal hand appeared. What was more worrying than the unhealthy appearance of said hand, though, were the five long nails, sharp as knives, which protruded from the fingertips. The skull-shaped mask made direct eye contact with Mana.

  “I don’t know who you are, but you’re in the way.”

  Mana was still frozen; something about this woman made her body lock up entirely. Her mind was racing, and she wanted to shout, but she could do nothing as the woman drew closer, and closer… and was promptly punched by Arisu who appeared from the side.

  Mors stumbled and let out a shriek of annoyance, turning towards the girl with glowing hair.

  “Abomination!” she exclaimed, slashing towards Arisu, who blocked with green energies sprouting from her wrists like blades.

  “Mana, snap out of it!” Arisu shouted, and Mana felt herself able to send commands to her own muscles again. She fell on her knees, breathing heavily, with cold sweat dripping on the ground.

  “Blow it up!” Arisu shouted.

  “What?!”

  “Blow it up!!” Arisu doubled down. “I trust you! You’ll make sure that we’re safe!” Arisu added before she let out a strained scream as one of the nails pierced her shoulder, and Mors lifted her up.

  “How fortuitous of you to come right to me. I’ll finally wipe away the stain you left on existence itself,” Mors whispered, raising another hand with sharp nails and aiming it directly at the girl’s crystal eye, who started to struggle in earnest as she saw what Mors had planned.

  Mana gritted her teeth, sprinting towards Arisu, tackling her away from the hooded creature and letting loose a fire arrow…

  The galleon ruptured and spewed fire in every direction, sending bones and burning wood flying. Its spine was broken by the direct explosion of its powder storage, offering a repeat of the spectacle from two years ago as it was cracked in two. A transparent cube of energy barriers was flung away at incredible speed, with Mana and Arisu on the inside, falling over each other as they tumbled inside the spinning cube. After some serious concentration, Mana managed to stop the barrier midair, and they finally came to a stop. They exchanged a short glance at each other before they let out a reluctant chuckle, then they laughed.

  “…I don’t think we killed whatever that was, but we may have sent it packing!” Mana said with a tired grin, and Arisu nodded, then she sighed, pulling on her uniform to look at the hole Mors left where she stabbed her.

  “Ugh, mom is going to chew me out again if I come back with a hole in my uniform…”

  Mana raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure she’s not mad about the uniform, but the fact that you’re still getting hit so often. She’s worried about you. I am, too.”

  “Boo, now you sound just like her,” Arisu said with a pout. She blinked as her phone went off, beeping loudly with a familiar alarm.

  “…my time’s up,” she said apologetically and leaned over to Mana to give her a final, long kiss. “I’ll have to be on my way soon, or I won’t make it home.”

  Mana nodded and gently caressed Arisu’s cheek, watching as she opened a portal.

  “I’ll meet you soon.”

  “You will,” Arisu said with a smile. She stepped through the portal and gave Mana a little wave. Just one more moment, and she was gone, just like that.

  Mana sighed, got rid of all barriers except the one she was standing on and turned towards the burning remains of the ship, looking at them deep in thought. Something was bothering her about this whole experience: the strange headaches she felt whenever she and the captain looked at each other. The way he seemed to react when he looked at her, too…

  Her thoughts were rudely interrupted by a hand that slapped her on her back. Mana stumbled forwards and turned around, looking at Luna’s grinning visage.

  “Hey there, young witch! Good job!”

  Sol joined them after a short while, and Mana looked at her apologetically.

  “I’m sorry we didn’t give any warning. Did you make it out alright?”

  Sol shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I knew that you were on it, so I pulled the mob towards the bowsprit to fight them there and have some space to get away. However, I think that’s how their captain snuck past me. Also, where’s the other girl who was with you?”

  “She’s back home,” Mana said and caught herself staring at the spot where Arisu vanished. She must have looked rather wistful, as Sol reached out to pat her head.

  “You like her a whole lot, hm? Hope you two get to be happy… woah!”

  “Mh?” Mana looked up and blinked, then Sol gently grabbed her right ear and Mana’s body went stiff as a board as a tingle went through her spine from the idol’s fingers gently running over the fluffy ear.

  “Luna, get over here!”

  “Hm? What for?”

  “Her ears are super soft!”

  “Hahaha! I know, right?”

  Before Mana knew it, she was holding her hat in her hands, and the two idols were busy petting her to their heart’s content. She felt her face heat up and redden, but right now she let the two have their moment, even though her heart beat so hard and fast it threatened to burst out of her chest. More than the strange feeling of her ears being touched, she was overwhelmed by the two world-famous idols flanking and spoiling her.

  A few days later

  ***

  “Mana! There’s a package for you!”

  Her mother shouted from downstairs, and Mana descended the stairs shortly after, letting out a little yawn. She tilted her head and inspected the package that was put in her hands, turning it around.

  “I didn’t order anything,” she commented, and her mother simply gave her a shrug.

  “It wasn’t brought by a delivery person, either. There was this blonde woman who said she wanted to give you a present. Are you hanging out with strange people?”

  “She’s not strange!” Mana immediately protested and blushed as she saw how it caught her mother off guard.

  “Well, if you say so. Want to open it?”

  Mana nodded and opened the package, looking inside. There was packaging foam inside, neatly nestling what looked like two pairs of headphones. As Mana lifted one of them up, she could see that the headset was in essence two triangular speakers which were attached to a sort of elastic headband. Cables were optionally included with various standards being supported, and they were Bluetooth capable as well. Mana put the headphones on, smiling as she felt the triangular speakers fit perfectly in front of her ears.

  “Wow! Who’d gift you something like that?” her mother let out a little whistle, inspecting Mana from all sides. Mana picked up a note from the box.

  ‘Heya, Manyan! Thank you for your help the other day. Sol and I were talking, and we both agreed that it would be worthwhile investing into stuff that makes the lives of all the kids who are going to live with mutations soon easier, so we had the company that usually makes our stage equipment whip something up! You’re getting the first of whatever they come up with! I included an extra for the other person Arisu mentioned as well, so feel free to let them have one, too!

  See you when we’re needed again!

  -Luna’

  “You know the Celestial Sisters?!” her mother now exclaimed in disbelief, and Mana showed her a little grin in return.

  “…a lot happened.”

  ***

  Month 1, Year 1 of Chief Technocrat Meryl’s Rule

  ***

  “I hereby vow to uphold the tenets of reason and of logical approaches towards all the difficulties facing the human species. Planet Thirram shall illuminate the dark and merciless universe with the light of wisdom under my guidance! This I swear by the treasure of knowledge our ancestors amassed to guide our way forward!”

  Meryl, dressed in an navy blue uniform with a golden sash, had her left hand behind her back while the other was raised, palm forwards, as she addressed the public, both in the audience in front of her, as well as the billions who were watching at home or in their laboratories.

  Two of her audience members, in fact, were two of her former colleagues, watching her inauguration from the observation room of the ‘Tokyo’ containment facility.

  “So, Castor has been the Chief Technocrat my entire life and I don’t really know what’s going on here. Could you explain it to me, since you’re older?” Claudia asked sheepishly, while Stevyn raised a brow.

  “Hey, I’m not that old! I was probably two years old when Castor came to power. But I did hear a lot from my parents regarding that, so…”

  He leaned back in his seat and stared at the ceiling.

  “The Chief Technocrat is a ruling position for life, chosen from among the directors of the most important research institutes on the planet.”

  Claudia nodded along enthusiastically.

  “This might actually cause some problems in this case. The Interdimensional Containment and Research Institute was only founded seventeen years ago with the appearance of all these… things that exist in the multiverse. Some people might look upon Meryl as an upstart, even if she was chosen by her peers to lead our world. In some ways she is. She only became head researcher when Marisa’s attack last time killed our supervisor.”

  Claudia nodded and looked at her watch.

  “I thought people were joking when they said a calendar year starts exactly when a new director takes office… ugh, this will completely mess up the way I memorized the cold and warm seasons.”

  Stevyn now let out a hearty laugh, then he looked at an alert he received on his personal communicator.

  “Ah, she’s here,” he announced, getting out of his chair.

  “Hm? Who?”

  “The new intern,” Stevyn explained as he walked to the door and opened it.

  On the other side stood a young woman with pink hair, wearing glasses. She gave the head researcher a smile and greeted him with a little bow of her head.

  “Claudia, this is Filo. For the next month she will assist us in keeping an eye on Marisa and studying Doppelg?nger.”

  Claudia gave the girl a little wave.

  “Hello, Filo! Please feel right at home! We got coffee, too, if you want some.”

  Filo smiled and gave Claudia a bow as well.

  “I’m honored to be working with you. I heard many interesting things about this facility and aim to work here one day.”

  Claudia smiled and clapped her hands together.

  “Right! We have an extensive wardrobe of outfits, too. Sometimes we need to go down there and do maintenance on the cameras or simply interact with the specimen. I’m sure it will make sense in no time. How about we go and see what clothes you’d like to wear to fit right in?”

  Filo appeared a little overwhelmed by the other young woman’s invitation, but she nodded.

  “That sounds fun…! Thank you again for giving me this opportunity! I’ll give my best to support your research any way I can!” the girl spoke with a beaming smile.

  ***

  After Filo underwent an extensive dress-up session with Claudia, the researchers finally turned their backs to watch the screens, and Amicitia took a deep breath before it came back out with a relieved sigh. Thankfully, Fraus gave her an illusory appearance to hide her glowing attributes and arranged for a fake background to allow her to enter the facility, so the two researchers sensed nothing off with her. Her eyes darted around and took in the details of the so-called containment facility, where Scotus sent her to prepare a contingency plan.

  This is uncle’s plan B?

  She shook her head; even with all her reservations, she didn’t have the option to refuse his request. She was scared of him, plain and simple, so she would do what he asked her to do, the faster, the better.

  I just need an opportunity to distract them and…

  She didn’t even finish the thought. She looked at the way Stevyn put his hand on Claudia’s shoulder as he explained some things to her, and the way she smiled at him. Then she looked at the thermos keeping their coffee warm.

  She might have just gotten an idea…