Arisu found herself in a white void. Not dissimilar to the one her uncle Janus inhabited, with its many doors to different places, but this one looked and even felt drastically different. For one, there were no doors. Wherever she looked, the white void simply expanded as far as she could see. And second, the floor was covered in what looked like black marbles. She was back in her nightmare, she realized, and the dreaded feeling of loneliness descended on her.

  Arisu stepped closer to one of those strange little orbs, reaching for it. She saw something glittering inside, like stars, which captured her curiosity even more. Enough that it somewhat suppressed the inherent dread she felt from being in this strange place again. Her finger almost touched the orb’s surface as a voice suddenly spoke up.

  “Who are you?”

  Arisu wheeled around, but she was already being ripped out of her dream. As everything darkened, she could only make out the other person’s eye. It was as black as the night, with a bright orange and blue iris, like a nebula. Stars swirled inside of it.

  The universe itself.

  As Arisu opened her eyes again, she was back in her room, staring at the ceiling. She yawned a little and turned around under her blanket, wrapping herself up nicely. She dwelled a little on that strange dream she had from time to time. It always ended the same way, and it always filled her with an extreme feeling of loneliness.

  This time at least it didn’t affect her so much that she needed to crawl into her mothers’ bed and seek their comfort. Instead, she looked at the row of little guardian angels standing on a little shelf at the end of her bed.

  A Magical Girl in a red, winged dress, with puffy white skirt, holding both a staff and a card. A Magical Girl in a sailor uniform with twin tails. A Magical Girl in a snow-white coat, wielding a staff that was equal parts magic focus and laser cannon. Mama Seika’s three great inspirations, recovered from her childhood room and passed on to her daughter, who made sure to take good care of them.

  “Good morning, girls,” she simply greeted them, then her eyes wandered to her alarm. Four in the morning.

  “Not yet, girls. Good night, girls.”

  ***

  Another morning, and after the usual kisses, breakfast, and goodbyes, Arisu left through the apartment door and took the stairs. While they were on the eighth floor, she had no issue simply walking up- and downstairs. From what she could tell, even without access to her more supernatural powers, she had better stamina than her peers, and besides, she had the bundled energy of a young girl.

  “Ah! Arichan!” she heard a greeting from the side and only managed to turn her head in time for Momo to tackle her into a hug, with Arisu’s face hopelessly sinking into the gyaru’s chest. It was comfortably warm and soft in there, at least.

  “Come on, Momo-pi, don’t suffocate her,” Arisu heard another voice. This one was Miyu, of course, who stepped next to Momo and gave her a soft karate chop on the head. Arisu managed to free her head just in time to witness it.

  “Teehee, she’s such a cutie, I, like, can’t help myself!” Momo exclaimed, poking out a tongue towards Miyu, who sighed before she greeted Arisu with a smile.

  These two gyaru were secretly the Celestial Sisters, the biggest celebrities in Japan. And they were sort of Arisu’s ‘cousins’, though not by blood. They simply saw Arisu’s mamas as their ‘aunties’, and so, by extension, they almost acted like sisters towards Arisu. When Arisu introduced herself to them, something was off, however. Just like Auntie Sayaka, Momo knew her from somewhere, immediately greeting her with the nickname ‘Arichan’. She had meant to ask them about it, but Momo was strangely elusive when it came up.

  “You’re always so cuddly with her. With Mana, too.”

  “Pff, shut up, Miyu-pyon! You’ve been petting her like crazy, too!”

  Arisu looked around between the two of them, blinking.

  “You know Mana?”

  “Ah, of course! She’s been helping us out from time to time,” Miyu answered, and Momo nodded enthusiastically.

  “Yeah! Like with that pirate ship! Or when the Dream Empress attacked.”

  Arisu nodded and smiled.

  “That sounds exciting. I’ll ask her about it some other time. But I have to get going now! Maybe I’ll see you later?” Arisu already ran in place, ready to dash for the train station once her two friends gave her the go-ahead.

  “Some other day! We have practice today… but yeah, be safe out there! Look both ways before crossing the street! Don’t take candy from strangers! All that!” Momo listed off and Miyu let out an audible sigh, but Arisu already waved at them both as she ran down the stairs.

  ***

  The way to school was uneventful, and so was her school day, relatively speaking. The girl who was targeted by Okumo yesterday - Ishikawa was her name - was still being eyed by the bully and her cronies, so Arisu stuck close to her. As Okumo approached her during Homeroom, Arisu was quickly on her feet and stood in front of the girl, blocking her seat neighbor’s path. She repeated the same during math class and history class right after, but just then, Ishikawa spoke up.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  That simple question disarmed her, and she turned towards Ishikawa, who looked at her with tired eyes that looked like she was attempting to hide that she cried herself to sleep yesterday.

  “Why wouldn’t I? I experienced being bullied by her, so I don’t want it to happen to anyone else,” Arisu declared matter-of-factly.

  “Just stop it. Don’t get involved with me!” Ishikawa whispered, and Arisu could feel a few eyes on her. This time the girl with the glasses looked like she might cry in front of the class.

  Arisu didn’t understand. She was so glad for Mana’s help the other day, and Okumo left her alone since then, so she assumed that the bully would simply stop if she noticed that her target wasn’t alone. But she wasn’t stopping on account of Arisu’s involvement, and worse still, her victim wanted to let it happen?

  “You’re not making sense,” she simply responded, and Ishikawa gave an irritated response.

  “Just sit down and don’t get involved!”

  Arisu gritted her teeth as she turned around and sat down. Okumo was like a vulture, taking this moment to sit down next to Ishikawa and speak to her, quietly, so that Arisu wouldn’t hear.

  She’s otherworldly… so why is she doing this? If only I could access the powers I should possess as a Deogemma…

  ***

  “Why won’t she let me help her?” Arisu complained loudly to Mana, who listened to her while they ate their bentos. They sat leaning against the rooftop enclosure, looking towards the city past the chain link fence.

  “Say something, Mana!” Arisu complained, and her blue-haired friend looked at her with an inscrutable expression.

  “You’re really driven by justice…” she said with a sigh as she put her bento down, walking towards the fence.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, nothing. I just feel like you’re going to stick your nose into every injustice you encounter. Which isn’t wrong, far from it, but you’ll need to remind yourself not to overdo it,” Mana said, turning around and giving Arisu a weak smile.

  “Well, thanks. But that doesn’t answer my original question!” Arisu protested, and Mana nodded before she leaned against the fence.

  “There can be multiple reasons why she doesn’t want you involved. Maybe she’s now trying to protect you from becoming Okumo’s target again. Maybe she is afraid that things will get worse if you don’t let the bullies let some ‘steam’ off. Or maybe she’s punishing herself for going along with it before.”

  Arisu was skeptical. The first day, Ishikawa thanked her for stepping in once the day was over, and now, the next day, her tone suddenly shifted.

  “Maybe something happened to her on her way home…”

  “That’s possible. Not like we could find out,” Mana agreed with a heavy sigh, then the bell interrupted their talk.

  “Ah, well… I’ll have to be in the building next door again. We’ll figure something out, alright?” she said, waving at Arisu as she already opened a portal.

  “Will you come with me after school? To, like, follow Ishikawa?”

  Mana stopped in front of her portal, looking back at Arisu, then she kept her eyes downcast.

  “Sorry, Arisu, but I’ve got something to do elsewhere once school is over. Helping you out isn’t my only responsibility,” she spoke quietly before she disappeared through her portal.

  Arisu raised a brow as she kept staring at the spot where her cat-eared friend vanished. She had a feeling that Mana wasn’t entirely truthful about how important her other ‘responsibility’ was, but for now she had no other choice but to accept it.

  The rest of the school day was uneventful. Arisu made sure to stand tall behind Ishikawa whenever Okumo got the idea to get close to her, and, for the most part, it worked. Arisu caught venomous glares from the supernatural girl’s scornful eyes more than once, and she was almost certain that Okumo considered switching targets to her again.

  However, things suddenly calmed down during the final period. Okumo simply sat in her chair and accompanied her two friends out of school as soon as the bell rang, to go to whatever trendy places bullies were going after school.

  With that out of the way, Arisu simply went home today, and unlike the past few days, she walked the way back to Shibuya station, instead of using one of Mana’s portals to whichever world she fancied at the moment and returning straight to her own doorstep.

  The way to the train station led through the residential streets of Shibuya, avoiding the busy main street altogether. Arisu was part of a long procession of schoolgirls who weren’t in any clubs, though she was still lost deep in her thoughts, staring at her hand. She was strong, she could feel it, but for some reason, she couldn’t bring that strength to emerge and become hers entirely. The thought troubled her to no end, and even now, she was still attempting to flex her muscles and manifest some kind of superhuman strength.

  Nothing.

  Arisu let out a long, frustrated sigh, clenching her eye shut as she flexed her muscles, attempting to feel something, anything.

  She was getting nowhere. She opened her eye again and let it wander, grumbling about her lack of success. She spotted a vending machine to her left and felt a little thirsty, so she walked over to it and stared at the selection, before her eye rested on a dark carbonated beverage, bearing the name of a certain doctor with a mildly spicy name.

  “The intellectual drink of the chosen ones,” she repeated the line from one of the anime out of her mother’s collection. She inserted some money, pushed a button and after waiting for the typical rattle of a beverage falling into the tray, she retrieved her soft drink.

  She turned around and took a few sips of it, taking in her surroundings. Right in front of her, the road forked, with the wedge between the streets housing a temple. Arisu looked at the first torii gate with some interest. It was constructed from stone, while there were more wooden ones behind it. Tokyo, and Japan in general, housed many of these kinds of shrines, but Arisu didn’t have the opportunity to visit one herself yet.

  Maybe that’s why what she saw right in this moment came as a complete surprise to her.

  It was faint, vanishingly so, but the space between the torii gate’s beams was tinted in a faint, greenish hue. Almost like it contained some sort of portal.

  Arisu furrowed her brow and was almost tempted to pull off her eyepatch to have a closer look at it with just her crystal eye, but a quick look around confirmed that this would be a bad idea, owing to the many girls her age walking home on the nearby street.

  She kept sipping her drink and walked to the side, to try and look directly at the torii gates. The rest of them had a similar glow between their beams as the first, and as Arisu walked to look directly through the path they formed, she saw the green energies overlapping and getting stronger.

  As she got them all lined up, she blinked in disbelief. She saw the same shrine on the other side, but the sky was colored gold, and red leaves were falling on the other side, while the shrine on this side was surrounded by evergreens.

  According to Mama’s knowledge…

  Arisu closed her eye and concentrated to recall what her birth implanted into her mind, only waiting to be dug up by her curiosity.

  Torii gates symbolize the transition of the mundane into the divine. They are gates for the kami to pass through.

  Apparently, this was a little more literal than people gave it credit for. Arisu was looking into a bona fide parallel world, or at least pocket dimension. She grinned from ear to ear and took another sip of her drink, then she stepped closer to the shrine. Even without Mana, she would have an adventure today, and-

  Suddenly, there was a dull pain in her shoulder. Someone walked into her, or maybe she walked into someone. The latter was more likely, she concluded, since she was so single-mindedly focused on the torii gate in front of her. But despite her conclusion, she heard an apology.

  “Oh, I didn’t see you there. My bad.”

  And yet, despite the apologetic words, the blood froze in Arisu’s veins as she recognized Okumo’s voice, even more so as the dull pain left by the rude shoulder tackle subsided and made way for a sharp pain radiating from her side.

  Arisu took a step back from the otherworldly bully and glanced down at herself, at the source of the pain. Her eyes went wide as she saw a kitchen knife stuck in her flank.

  “I don’t like you, Takeuchi. You’re in the way, and you don’t even look delicious like the other girls. I think it’s best if you disappear,” Okumo spoke, but Arisu didn’t even listen to her. Her mind was entirely occupied with different thoughts.

  It hurts! It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!!

  Arisu held her side with shivering lips and stumbled away from Okumo.

  This can’t be it! I was just born last month... it’s not going to end here, is it?!

  “Don’t take it personally… I simply detest when someone disturbs my feeding grounds,” Okumo spoke, and her grin revealed a mouth full of sharp needle teeth. Despite the pain, Arisu found that face so punchable that she went for it.

  Her fist made noisy contact with Okumo’s jaw and to Arisu’s surprise, the strange girl’s head even snapped ninety degrees to the side, causing her to stumble backwards.

  “What the…” Okumo held her cheek, looking at Arisu with narrowed eyes before she spoke again.

  “What are you?”

  Arisu blinked and looked at her hand. It didn’t appear much different to her, but she felt a strange new power surging through her, and the lighting on it appeared to have a green hue. Her thoughts were interrupted by a metallic clatter as the knife hit the ground, and she looked at her side. She was pretty sure that she got stabbed just a moment ago, but aside from a hole in her uniform, there was no sign of injury left.

  She didn’t get to wonder about her apparent invulnerability for long, however, as something happened to Okumo. Her uniform ripped and split apart in various places as a bulbous body emerged. Eight long, spindly legs carried it, with the black-haired girl’s torso sitting on top, barely covered by the shreds of her uniform. Her black eyes split apart until there were eight of them on her forehead, all of which focused the girl in front of her. Arisu let out a surprised shout, then the giant spider creature came her way again, skittering over the pavement, in which her sharp, pointy legs left holes. Arisu turned around and tried to run, or at least shout for help, but she stopped as she saw that the nearby street was still busy, yet no one seemed to care that there was a giant spider chasing a girl.

  “Humans are so easily tricked. They don’t see what they don’t want to see, and they’re not easily ripped out of that state…” Okumo’s voice whispered behind her. She turned around and took a stance to throw another punch, but even before she completed her turn, one of Okumo’s spider legs hit her in the side and flung her away. The street turned into a blurry mess as she spun and then a dull, sudden pain radiated through her side while she heard a wooden crack. Shortly after, she landed on the ground, kicking up dust and coughing as she looked around. The sky was a strange, golden color, and the evergreen trees that surrounded the shrine were exchanged for Japanese maple trees whose red leaves lazily swung in a breeze while some fell down, gliding from side to side before falling on the ground, or, in one case, on Arisu’s head. She was right in front of the small shrine now, with its two framing fox statues staring down at her predicament.

  Arisu scrambled to stand up, but the pain in her side only allowed her to get on all fours as she looked back at the torii gates through which she was flung – and of which she evidently hit one, judging by the crack in the wood.

  Okumo followed her, with her thin legs clicking on the stone stairs before they thumped on the earth around the shrine. She held the knife again, running a thumb over its edge as she came ever closer, with her sharp teeth showing a twisted grin.

  “Well, whatever you are, I’m sure I’ll find a way to kill you sooner or later, weak as you are now…”

  Okumo stopped. She looked around and grimaced, which looked more horrifying with her transformed face. Just in that moment, blue, dancing flames in the shape of orbs appeared around the creature and circled her.

  “Stay out of this, you damn hermit!” she exclaimed with a hiss.

  “You break the peace of my shrine, you damage one of its gates connecting it to the outside world, and then you have the audacity to try and give me commands? You yokai never change.”

  Arisu slowly rose to her feet again, touching the side which just hit the torii gate, though the pain had already subsided. She looked back to Okumo, who nervously walked backwards as the blue flames encircled her further, then the first one shot straight for her.

  The spider yokai let out a scream as the blue flame burned her flank and turned around, skittering towards the gate. Three more fireballs followed her and one hit, but then she was gone, vanishing in the real world somewhere. Arisu took a deep breath and let herself fall on her knees, examining herself.

  “…the uniform has a hole and is all dirty… mom is going to kill me…” she mumbled.

  “And who might you be?” the previous voice asked; Arisu turned around as she felt it coming from behind, and she was immediately face-to-face with a beautiful woman. Her hair was a silver color, tied into a neat bun behind her head, while her eyes were a golden hue that reminded her of Mama Bellona, and shaped in a sharp angle reminiscent of a fox. Her clothes were that of a shrine maiden, with a white robe and a red hakama, while she held a simple broom, as if Arisu’s struggle interrupted her cleaning the leaves from the shrine’s courtyard. The woman wore an enigmatic smile and took a step back, eyeing Arisu from top to bottom.

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  “My, you are a strange one. Not only were you able to enter this place, but you also have some… strange attributes. Like that glowing hair.”

  “…wait, glowing hair?” Arisu asked, running a hand through her hair and pulling it into view. There was indeed a green light emitting from her usually dirty blonde hair now, and she looked at it with big eyes, before she let out a laugh.

  “Finally! I’m like my mamas!”

  The strange woman in front of her tilted her head before she cleared her throat. Arisu’s mind snapped out of her little moment and she remembered her manners, quickly bowing, though given the wink the other woman gave her, she didn’t appear mind at all.

  “Ah I’m Arisu Takeuchi! Nice to meet you! Sorry for barging in!”

  The woman appeared amused by the young girl’s introduction and bowed slightly before her to return the courtesy.

  “Hello, young Arisu. I am Inari ōkami and this is one of the many shrines I call home.”

  “You are a Deogemma! I haven’t met one of your kind in… oh, how long has it been by now? Almost two thousand years, I believe.”

  After Arisu’s transformation came undone again, the two sat on the steps in front of the small shrine, and here Arisu could finally look around properly. The equivalent shrine in her world stood right next to a modern building which provided shade, but it was missing entirely in here. In fact, there was no city outside of the shrine grounds; instead, there were rice fields as far as Arisu could see, all of which looked ripe for harvest judging by their golden color.

  She could vaguely make out the moving shapes of white-furred foxes which almost walked like they were patrolling those fields.

  Arisu knew about Inari from the knowledge of her mothers, of course. A goddess (or a god, or divinity of undefined gender) of rice, fertility, economics and various other things. This knowledge made her spring her next question.

  “Two thousand years? I thought you’ve only been around for… one and a half thousand years…?”

  “Of course, that’s when I got worshipped in this land. But I’ve been a wanderer long before that. Visiting when the worlds overlapped. Staying when they drifted apart again, instead of going home.”

  Inari let out a long sigh, staring at the fields outside while showing a wistful little smile.

  “Sometimes I miss home, but watching over the humans of this land has brought me great joy. But… there are fewer of our kind these days than there used to be.”

  “Why?” Arisu asked curiously.

  “Well, it has somewhat to do with why I haven’t seen a Deogemma in so long. At some point, humans who chose to worship us otherworldly beings in the first place, turned on us one by one, spurred by new beliefs of their own design,” Inari recounted, and her face took on a pained expression.

  “Your fellow Deogemma, who once gave guidance to the humans inhabiting the coastal regions surrounding the Mediterranean, were driven out and left this world not long after,” Inari spoke, and her eyes stared somewhere into the distance. Arisu reached out to give her hand a little squeeze, and the strange woman looked at her in surprise before she continued, returning the gesture.

  “There were so many visitors from other places. So many interesting people who I met, and will never meet again, simply because they were no longer welcome and chose to tragically abandon this world. My own travels led me here, and the people liked me, as well as my favorite animals, so I settled and will stay here, as long as people don’t drive me out. Some made an effort a few hundred years ago, but your human ancestors thankfully resisted them, even if I didn’t quite like their methods.”

  “Are the other kami also visitors?” Arisu asked with some interest, and Inari nodded.

  “Oh, yes! There are quite a few, like Hachiman. His shrine is right on the opposite side of the road from this one, and we talk often. And then there’s the yokai, who are… visitors like us but who chose to wander among the humans. Some for nefarious reasons, others because they like you.”

  Arisu narrowed her eyes and looked at the torii gate. She could still see the vending machine out there, where she was attacked.

  “Why can’t I feel their world of origin if they are visitors?”

  “So, you do have the true sight. I was wondering about that… especially how you were able to pass through my gates! Usually when a person passes through the gates to my shrine, they…”

  Inari interrupted herself as a man in a business suit approached the torii gates. As he passed through the first, he turned a little transparent and kept doing so the more torii gates he passed, until he resembled an incorporeal ghost stopping in front of the little shrine.

  He prayed, and his voice filled the space of the shrine grounds.

  “Please let my business prosper! Please let my daughter get into a good university!”

  It was a simple prayer, and he didn’t linger long. Inari even touched the shoulder of his ghost and Arisu thought she could see a little glow pass from her to him as he left.

  “…usually this happens. Humans can’t enter this realm, but parts of their souls are visible and can be touched,” Inari explained with a little grin.

  “And you can grant their wishes?” Arisu asked with some curiosity.

  “Oh, absolutely not. But I can touch their souls and give them a spark to seize their wishes for themselves.”

  Arisu nodded, staring at the torii gates while the businessman’s soul left and turned into a proper person as he was fully on the other side again.

  “Back to your question, however. I am assuming you are talking about Okumo, that Jorogumo who chased you in here, yes?”

  Arisu nodded, so Inari continued.

  “When a visitor has been here for a long enough time, they become… naturalized. We forget our original world, and we come to see this one as our true home. I’m guessing that those feelings are muddying your true sight, and therefore all you’ve gotten was a strange feeling of otherworldliness without a real cause.”

  Inari winked at Arisu.

  “We have become very good at blending in with your people.”

  Arisu cleared her throat.

  “Why haven’t you ever confronted her? She’s hurting people…”

  “That is parts misguided compassion for fellow lost travelers, and also… the fact that when I leave, I become nearly as powerless as a normal human. It is nice to go out there and see the world with my own two eyes from time to time, but I can’t become a protector of the world like your Magical Girls.”

  “It’s the same for the other Kami?”

  “Pretty much. The magic spark has faded from your world, and we created these parallel spaces to sustain us, while Yokai like Okumo have decided to sustain themselves on the occasional taste of human flesh while nesting in places with trace amounts of magical energies. Friendlier ones sometimes come to us to recharge instead, but… the hostile ones are more common,” Inari said, looking a little troubled.

  “If you can’t stop her, then I will,” Arisu said, hopping on her feet. Inari raised an eyebrow and examined the young girl with a tilted head before she responded with a little smirk.

  “And how?”

  “Like this!” Arisu exclaimed. She clenched her fists and concentrated on the feeling of wanting to punch Okumo earlier. She could see her bangs fluttering before they changed color, and soon after she emitted a green light, feeling strength and confidence flow through her.

  “Interesting… and how much did that help you twenty minutes ago?”

  Arisu felt her face heat up as she turned red and looked away from Inari, nervously rubbing her hands together.

  “Well, I… maybe I could…”

  Her stammering was interrupted by a little laugh from Inari, who waved her hand in a dismissive gesture.

  “It’s fine, young Deogemma. All you require is a little bit of training to properly wield your power. And I think I might have just the perfect teacher at my disposal.”

  After Inari’s words, the air next to her looked like it was shimmering, and almost instantly, the figure of an armored samurai materialized. Just like all warriors of his kind, he wore a katana and the accompanying wakizashi on his hip. His armor was made up of many small, riveted plates overlapping each other, with two large spaulders covering his shoulders. He wore a full-face mask that gave him a demonic, scowling face under his horned helmet and besides had a bow slung around his body, with a full quiver of arrows on his back. He took just a moment to look Arisu up and down before he announced himself with a booming voice.

  “Greetings, young one! My name is Hachiman, or ōjin, former emperor and now god of war of this beautiful land of the rising sun!”

  The force of his booming voice alone threatened to push Arisu back one step and she blinked his way, utterly taken aback.

  “My friend Inari here informed me that you require combat training and training I shall give you!” Hachiman kept speaking with his booming voice. Arisu braced herself against his forceful presence and dug her heels in until he stopped speaking; as she looked at him again, he had his katana drawn, assuming a combat stance.

  “I shall make a warrior out of you in no time!”

  Eh?

  ***

  Arisu felt sore all over as she left Inari’s pocket dimension through the torii gate, and her school uniform was tattered to show the ordeal she just went through. It was already dark out, and Arisu cursed a little, then she cursed even louder as she pulled out her phone and saw a double-digit number of messages from her mothers. Then she broke out in a cold sweat as she saw a bright blue trail blast across the sky and realized that Mama Bellona was looking for her.

  Arisu didn’t get to wriggle out of explaining what she was up to that evening. She had to explain that ‘something’ attacked her, barely avoiding mentioning specifics about Okumo, and she had to explain that she landed in a pocket dimension that not even Mama Minerva could feel all these years. She also had to detail the training she went through under the guidance of Hachiman, which now allowed her to summon energy blades or a bow to her side that always hit its target.

  She got an earful for not letting anyone know where she went and for ruining her uniform, but it all culminated with gentle hugs and her mothers’ relief at her safety.

  ‘Seika: I know I’m asking a lot of you, recently, but can you please at least escort Arisu home, even if you’re not spending time together? She got attacked yesterday.’

  ‘Mana: Really? I’m sorry, I’ll keep an eye on her from now on.’

  ‘Seika: It’s nothing you need to feel sorry for, but I’d feel calmer if she had a friend looking out for her until she’s home.’

  Mana stared at her phone screen as she sat in her chair during homeroom, letting out a long sigh. She ditched Arisu yesterday to be intimate with Marisa again, but now she only felt regret for that decision.

  Guilt and regret are about the only things I feel recently, even though I should feel so much better now that Marisa and I are together again...

  She shook her head and got out of her chair as her teacher entered the room, quickly bowing as the class representative instructed and sitting back down.

  “Alright, class. Attendance,” the teacher announced, listing off names. Finally, as he reached ‘Kanno’, Mana responded, and that was the moment the door was pushed open noisily. All heads turned, Mana’s included, and Arisu stood right there in the door.

  “Sorry, I have to borrow Mana for a second!” she announced and immediately stomped towards Mana’s desk. She blinked and her eyes widened as her ‘future wife’ simply grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her along.

  “What is this? Who is that?! Kanno, come back! Right now!!”

  ***

  “I’m going to get into so much trouble for this…” Mana grumbled. She didn’t care much for the way Arisu pulled her out of class, and she cared less for the way she was being princess carried by Arisu, who was now transformed into her familiar green glowing form and flew through the sky.

  “Sorry! But this is an emergency, Mana!” she said apologetically, and Mana sighed.

  “Alright, tell me what’s happening and I’ll see about helping you out. Also, nice to see you finally getting your transformation.”

  “I was ready to face Okumo today or at least stand up to her until she would try to attack me again after school, but she never showed up. The problem is, neither did Ishikawa.”

  “I heard about the attack… what exactly happened? Like, did she try to beat you up, or…?” Mana asked with some concern, looking at the city down below.

  “She’s a yokai! A Jorogumo!”

  Mana blinked and let those words sink in for a moment. She tried to recall things she heard about that specific kind of yokai before, but before that something else came to mind for her.

  “Wait a second, yokai are real?”

  “That’s what you’re surprised about? You’ve seen crazier stuff than me!”

  “Yeah, but I’ve never seen that crazy stuff come from here!” Mana complained.

  “Let’s talk about that later, for now we need to find Ishikawa, or she’s going to get eaten!”

  Mana grumbled; she was far from done asking questions, but she wanted to help Arisu, so she simply went along with it for now.

  “So, do you know where she is?” Mana asked, and Arisu stopped, blushing.

  “No! But I think Auntie Momo or Auntie Miyu have locator rings they use from time to time?”

  “Well, open with that! I have an idea,” Mana said and opened a portal right in front of the two of them. Mana let out a long sigh as the room on the other side showed Nicola giving Hifumi a lap pillow on her couch. The silver-haired woman turned her head towards Mana and raised a brow, then a finger to her lips.

  “She just dozed off.”

  “Lovely,” Mana commented dryly. “I need locator rings and I’ll be out of your hair.”

  “Help yourself in the treasury. I’ll deactivate the security measures.”

  “Thanks, Nicola.”

  Mana wasted no time opening a portal into the treasury and grabbed two of the rings out of a treasure chest, immediately putting one of them on one of Arisu’s fingers. She stopped and looked at the girl, who was currently in the process of imitating a tomato with her head.

  “Oh, come on, take this seriously! It’s a magic ring, of course you’re going to wear it on your finger!”

  “Ah… ah! Right, right! Sorry!” Arisu panicked a little and Mana sighed.

  “So, focus on whose location you want to track. It’s completely possible that Ishikawa could just be sick or something. So do you want to go after her first, or after Okumo?”

  Arisu looked at the ring on her finger for a while and narrowed her eyes, visibly mulling her options over. The gemstone on the ring was glowing brightly after a while, and the girl sped up once more, taking Mana with her.

  ***

  They flew for roughly five minutes until Arisu approached one of the parks in the city and descended. She came to a halt in front of a small waterfall, maybe three meters high. At the moment, nobody was there, much to Mana’s relief, as she didn’t even have her hat to hide her face.

  “Who did you end up tracking?” Mana asked, and Arisu narrowed her eyes, staring at the rushing water in front of them.

  “Ishikawa,” she answered and approached the waterfall. Mana let out a shout and immediately covered her face with her arms as Arisu accelerated towards the rock behind the waterfall for no apparent reason and the two simply phased through it.

  As Mana lowered her arms, she could see that they were in a big, cavernous space. It was dark, with Arisu’s glowing hair offering some light. Spiderwebs with threads as thick as yarn covered the place, and in the middle of it all, Ishikawa hung, unconscious as far as Mana could tell.

  “Oh, good! We’re not too late!” Arisu exclaimed and landed on the ground, putting Mana down.

  “Want me to get her somewhere safe fast?” Mana approached the spiderweb and prepared herself to open a portal.

  “Let’s do that, before Okumo…” Arisu interrupted herself and Mana saw a green flash from the corner of her eye. She turned around to see what was happening and was almost crushed by a giant spider body landing on top of her, if she hadn’t jumped backwards, while Arisu had to fend off one of the creature’s leg swipes. She summoned her wrist blade formed from her own Deogemma energies, though after deflecting the blow, she shaped it into a katana, taking a combat stance.

  Mana scrambled out of the way of the giant spider, shooting a fire arrow its way, though it deflected it with another one of its spindly legs, brushing the flames off with its exoskeleton.

  “I knew it!” a hissing voice spoke, and the huge spider stepped closer towards Arisu with clicking legs. She swiped at her with her front legs, and Arisu deflected the blows with her summoned sword, though Mana could tell that she was struggling; she must have acquired her ability to fight only yesterday and was still inexperienced in actual combat.

  “You’re not of this world. Not really, just like all those visitors who infuse local girls with their powers. Do you have any idea how much harder it has become to hide in the past seventeen years?!”

  Arisu stepped in to counter Okumo with a cut, but the yokai used her hard limbs to her advantage, blocking Arius’s attack with one leg while forcing her to dodge with the other.

  Mana ran along the side of the large spider, cursing quietly to herself as her fire arrows were deflected by the spindly legs again.

  “Her spider body is too hard, Arisu! Focus on her human torso!” Mana shouted and demonstrated her words by shooting a few magic arrows at Okumo’s bare chest.

  The yokai jumped out of the way with surprising agility; Mana saw too late that she aimed the back of her large abdomen towards her and spat out spider silk. Mana cursed as she got tangled up, falling to the ground with a grunt while she struggled to get up. To her horror, she could now see that the ground was covered in silk cocoons, and they were moving.

  “And you! ‘Kitty-senpai’, as your fellow students call you behind your back. Which of your ancestors mated with a bakeneko? Maybe I even knew her…” Okumo couldn’t finish her mockery as something hit her. A green glowing projectile shattered against her hard exoskeleton, and she turned her eyes towards Arisu again, with Mana following suit.

  She had now exchanged her summoned katana for a bow, and its arrows flew in wide arcs, forcing Okumo to crawl along the ceiling at great speed, using her armored legs to deflect the magic projectiles coming towards her.

  “No matter! Devour the cat’s spawn, my children! I will take care of the mongrel myself!”

  Arisu and Okumo clashed as the spider jumped off the ceiling and forced her into using her katana again, but Mana couldn’t focus on their fight at all. The cocoons around her burst open, and head-sized spiders crawled out of them; their bellies were glowing red, and Mana flinched as they spewed fire which hit her hastily erected protective barrier.

  She breathed heavily and in panic as she saw the lesser yokai crawl over her barriers, right in front of her face.

  She grimaced and wiggled in the spider silk that kept her restrained, then she got an idea.

  “Barrier. I need you to make these barriers much thinner and shrink them until they are right on top of my clothes,” she whispered. She could have simply thought her instructions, but as embarrassing as it was to admit, with the lack of interdimensional travel ever since Marisa got imprisoned, she had been out of practice for a while now, and didn’t want to rely on old, unpracticed tricks at a crucial moment.

  “Of course, milady, but…”

  “But what?!”

  “Would it be too much to ask for you to introduce me to the fair ladies Momo and Miyu next time you see them?”

  “Seriously, do you think this is the best time to – okay, fine!”

  With that deal out of the way, Barrier followed her instructions to the letter. The barriers shrunk until they were like a second skin, and the next set of flames that was shot at her burned through the spider silk. Mana immediately jumped up, just in time for the thin barrier to shatter, then she extended her hands towards her skittering opponents.

  “Stasis! Bind! Arrow! Arrow!! Arrow!!!”

  One after the other she shot her spells at the spiders, keeping her distance. Those struck by her projectiles burst into small fireballs, while the one held by bind was slowly crushed. The one put in stasis she finished off with another arrow, then she turned around to face the battle between Arisu and Okumo.

  The two were in a stalemate – not due to a comparable skill in battle, but because Okumo employed a dirty tactic, now that she noticed that she was cornered. Molten chitin marked her legs where Arisu struck her with her summoned katana, and two of Arisu’s glowing arrows were stuck in her flank. She breathed heavily and looked concerned, but still, she managed a cruel smile, as she held Ishikawa by the throat, with a spider leg pointed at her chest.

  “Now, leave my lair and never come back, or I’ll gut this girl right here!” she spoke to Arisu, who grimaced, but kept her glowing bow aimed right at Okumo’s heart.

  “Coward! Let her go and face me!”

  “You can’t be serious…” Okumo sighed, and Ishikawa screamed. The spider thrust one of her sharp legs through the girl’s thigh, and she opened her eyes wide, looking terrified, confused and in excruciating pain at the same time.

  “No! Leave her alone! I’ll… I’ll leave if you give her back! Please!” Arisu pleaded and lowered her bow, but she stopped herself as Mana finally reached her, putting a hand on her shoulder as she stared Okumo down.

  “Shoot her, Arisu,” Mana whispered and Arisu looked at her in shock.

  “But if I do that, then Ishikawa…”

  “Trust me,” was all Mana said, raising her own hand to point a finger at Okumo, summoning a magic arrow. She could see various emotions play out on Arisu’s face, with its now exposed crystal eye, and determination won out. She pulled the string of her magic bow again, and together the pair let loose their magic arrows on the monster that had haunted their school for who knows how long, while said monster let out a scream and moved to impale Ishikawa…

  “Im… impossible…” Okumo gurgled. Her heart was pierced by two magic arrows, and her throat by one of her own spider legs. The moment she tried to kill the girl she held in her web, a blue portal appeared, and her spider leg, aimed for Ishikawa’s heart, instead appeared right in front of her out of a matching portal and impaled her.

  Arisu lowered her bow and exhaled noisily, before she hurried to Ishikawa’s side. The girl’s screams had stopped a few seconds ago and Arisu feared the worst. After freeing her from the web, she quickly checked her pulse and let out a second sigh, this time one of relief, as she could confirm that she was alive.

  Arisu looked around frantically and grabbed one of the spider silk strings, tying it tightly around Ishikawa’s upper thigh, using it as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.

  “Mana… we need to get her to Auntie Nicola!” she pleaded and blinked as she saw the infirmary of Auntie Nicola’s castle in front of her. Her friend was two steps ahead, it appeared. She quickly hopped through the portal and put Ishikawa on one of the beds, and the elf healer Lithael quickly hurried towards her.

  “You’re…?”

  “Arisu Takeuchi!” she introduced herself. “Nicola is my auntie. Please, help this girl!”

  Lithael nodded and pointed both her hands at the wound, which closed right in front of Arisu’s eyes. She walked over to the portal and looked outside, seeing Mana kneeling next to a pile of what looked like human bones.

  “Are those…?”

  “Her victims,” Mana confirmed and folded her hands together.

  “May you have a better next life,” she spoke quietly before she got up again.

  “I didn’t know you were religious.”

  “There’s a difference between… knowing and belief. I know what souls do after a person dies, so I’m just wishing them a good journey. I’m not particularly religious,” Mana spoke quietly, then she looked at Ishikawa on the bed of the infirmary.

  “Let’s get her home and call it a day…” she spoke melancholically.

  ***

  Arisu got an earful about confronting a dangerous monster like Okumo without informing her mothers, but since things went well, her mamas weren’t exactly angry; they, however, gave her a long lecture about being prepared for any risks and calling for her mothers when things get dangerous.

  With that, her school life continued the way it should, though there was a melancholic air about the classroom the next few days.

  Multiple girls’ faces were plastered around town on missing person posters, and soon after taken down after the bones were discovered. More than that, the bullies who were on Okumo’s side before now greeted Arisu cordially like nothing happened. Arisu recalled what Inari told her about cases like these before she departed after Hachiman’s training.

  “Yokai like to suddenly appear and integrate themselves into society. People will think that they have always existed within their midst, and they will forget about anyone eaten by them. Conversely, once the yokai departs or dies, people will remember their victims. They will notice the empty chairs, the untouched beds, the hole in their hearts, while the yokai’s existence is entirely forgotten.”

  It was a bittersweet victory. Arisu wished she could have been born sooner to save the other girls, but Mama Minerva assured her that she needed to take her victories where she could, otherwise she would suffocate her own heart. She was happy at the very least that Ishikawa was now safe, and much friendlier with her, even if she didn’t remember a thing about her imprisonment in the cave.

  And speaking of her heart, ever since Mana acted so cool during their fight with Okumo, telling Arisu to trust her before pulling off a daring plan, the poor little thing fluttered in her chest whenever she got to see her blue-haired, cat-eared senpai…

  “Here you go, Miori. Fresh test results from her transformed form.”

  Sayaka visited Miori in Snack Starlight shortly before closing time, with no other patrons to listen in on their conversation. She held the envelope towards Miori in one hand, and her whiskey glass in the other, taking a big gulp.

  “The results are really strange, though,” she commented as Miori opened the envelope herself.

  “What, you peeked?”

  “A little.”

  “You're the worst doctor ever…”

  “Only since I met you all. I was the very model of a doctor before that!”

  Sayaka peeked her tongue out at Miori as she put the various test results on the table. They were ten maternity tests, all involving Arisu. One was for Ayame, one for Miori, one for Seika, one for Minerva and finally one for Bellona. A second set was made for Arisu while she was transformed.

  Ayame’s result was negative for both, which was no surprise to Miori. The enchanted flower of Flora was said to only work between Deogmma women, and Ayame wasn't bonded with one during their wedding night. It saddened her a little, that one of Arisu's mothers wasn't related to her by blood, but as far as she could tell, it didn't bother Ayame nor Arisu.

  Next up was Seika. She had a genetic match with Arisu in her untransformed state, but not her transformed one. The same result applied to Miori. Minerva and Bellona were the exact inverse, showing a genetic match with Arisu's transformed state, and her transformed state only.

  It is odd that you have genes in the first place, given that you are projected bodies of enchanted crystals.

  “I don't have a good explanation for this phenomenon, either,” Bellona proper commented dryly in Miori's mind.

  She let the info in front of her sink in a little longer, then she looked Sayaka in the eyes.

  “She has four biological mothers.”

  “Sure has.”