Magical Girl Overtime [Second Arc Complete!]

December 2025

Seika stared over the edge of the printed-out manuscript she held in her hands, looking at her young author, Miyako Hashima. The girl looked at her in anticipation, with the occasional huff that would blow comedic little puffs of smoke out of her nose if they were in an anime.

“How… how is it?” she asked and Seika adjusted her glasses, clearing her throat. She subconsciously rubbed it with one hand as well, as she still remembered having an odd feeling there the other day, when Mana and Arisu came back from the past and informed her that they altered it. She just wished she could remember the source of that feeling.

“It’s great! You’re not speeding into things too fast. You’re keeping the reader on edge with the ‘will they or won’t they’ tension. The naughty scenes are what one would expect from the genre and beyond. I did like the accidental boob grab when he walked in on her while she was showering and fell over while trying to retreat. This is all great fodder for your artist. However, there’s an addition at the very end that puzzles me a little.”

“W-what is it?” Hashima asked, though by the way she was blushing, Seika intuited that she already knew what she was going to ask about.

“…well, you introduced a few other sibling pairings who joined the Imouto Cult before, so it’s not that new, but in this new draft you are teasing a pair of lesbian twins, despite the story having been purely heterosexual so far…”

Seika looked Hashima deep into the eyes and the girl wiggled in place, looking from side to side.

“Ahaha… I thought it would be… neat?” She stammered and Seika let out another sigh.

“…you saw my other author being picked up by her twin sister when you came in last week, didn’t you?”

“Eh?! I… uh…”

“Is that why you were late? You stalked them?”

“N-no, I…. uh…” Hashima looked panicked, staring at her hands on the table now. Seika put the manuscript down and rubbed her temples.

I’m surrounded by perverts.

“Says the woman married to two other women and two gemstones, not to mention all the things she does during ‘private time’,” Pallas commented in her mind and laughed. Minerva even joined in on the laughter. Seika did her best not to let her slight annoyance show on her face.

“So, you saw them together, and that influenced you to include the twins in your story?” Seika asked now. She needed to dig a bit deeper, purely to avoid any scandals. “Did you see something that inspired you?”

“Ah, uhm… when they walked home, they held hands and the way they looked at each other… so yes, I was inspired! I thought it was really nice!” Hashima quickly told her, and Seika breathed a sigh of relief.

Good on Mana for holding back in public.

“Alright, you can include these twins. The biggest chunk of our demographic is male readers, and the majority of them wouldn’t have an issue with some yuri, I imagine. Just… don’t blatantly base them on your colleagues, please?”

“No, no! I was thinking of completely identical twins, same hair color and everything. They could also always switch who’s the younger sister and… ehehehe…”

“Well, don’t let me keep you, Hashima,” Saika confirmed with a nod, dismissing the author as she was already visibly preparing her ideas in her mind. The girl hopped up and grinned.

“You won’t regret this! I’ll make the hottest little sister-obsessed twins the world has ever seen!” she declared, and with that she ran out of the meeting room, presumably straight home to start writing.

Seika shook her head and stretched, packing her own things together to return to her desk, though as she was halfway done, she felt a strange tingle on her skin.

“Interdimensional invader! They’re right behind you!” Minerva warned and Seika wheeled around, already focusing on a quick transformation, but as she finished her turn, she was face-to-face with a very oddly dressed girl. She looked a little like a jester without the typical cap, instead she wore a red feather hat with a green brim. Red and purple was split evenly on the two halves of her gambeson, with her pants having a similar split between an orange and yellow leg each. The girl’s black hair swayed behind her as she stepped quickly towards Seika.

“Where’s Bellona? I can’t find her! There was someone else at her place! Did she move?”

Seika opened her mouth and tried to speak, but right now she was much too overwhelmed to form a coherent sentence. She hurried to the door and peeked outside, making sure that no one saw before she quickly closed the door, turning around to face PPiper.

“Are you out of your mind?! This is my job! I can’t have people find out who I am! What if the early warning system pinpoints your location?!”

The girl looked at her apologetically but grabbed her firmly by the shoulders. “I’m sorry, but this is an emergency! I need you to be ready to fight, and I’ll need Bellona, too. And… everyone else you can find.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

PPiper grimaced, and she looked a little tortured.

“I can’t tell you. Not like this. That’s why we need Bellona and her ‘Realm of Duels’, so that I can talk freely.”

Seika cursed quietly, but she finally nodded.

“How did you… get in here? Can you go back out like that?”

“Ah! Well, it’s a personal teleport. One person only, though,” Annette responded with a nod. Seika let out a little groan, then she pulled her phone out of her pocket and opened a map of Tokyo where she quickly zoomed in on her apartment.

“Go here! Our apartment is on the top floor. Miori should be asleep right now, she had a shift at Snack Starlight.”

PPiper nodded and gave Seika a thumbs-up, then she immediately glowed in a faint blue color and vanished.

Seika sighed before she walked out of the office with determined steps, quickly reaching her desk and packing her things together.

“Leaving already?” Watanabe asked curiously.

“My meeting with Hashima is done. Sorry, something came up and I have to go home early. I’ll use up some of my overtime for that if you don’t mind.”

Watanabe tilted his head, but he gave her a thumbs-up.

“Don’t let me stop you. Can’t hold people here when there’s an emergency at home, hm? You’ve been… taking care of Takeuchi’s daughter, hm? Is it related?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll do my best to resolve whatever it is as quickly as possible so I can keep working without interference.”

Watanabe nodded and Seika quickly left MagiColle’s offices. She didn’t walk to the station but immediately found a quiet corner to transform.

If it’s as serious as she says, we should go all-out from the start.

“No objections from me,” Minerva confirmed, and Pallas sent a warm pulse through Seika’s core to signal her own affirmation.

“Transform!”

***

Pallas Athena flew over the city, letting her eyes dart around nervously. She held Seika’s phone in her hand and quickly opened the group chat.

‘Seika: Miyu, Momo! We need you. Some kind of invasion is about to start and from what I know it’s going to be a big one.”

‘Miyu: We just got an alert, too. Apparently, something big is happening in Saitama. Weird soldiers in fantasy armor, and our old friend the Dream Empress is spreading her phantoms, too.’

“Saitama?”

Athena looked at the phone’s screen, trying to pry any sort of meaning from the location of the attack, but none came to mind. She accelerated anyway, rushing towards the city. After a few minutes, she already felt the magical energies of the invasion. Tears in reality opened and allowed soldiers to step out, but most of them weren’t the familiar signature of the video game-like world that used to mark the Rodent Regiment.

“Something’s weird about this invasion, Pallas,” she whispered to her partner, who rested in her hand in the shape of a spear. “It should be an invasion from PPiper’s world, with the fake video game… why is the Dream Empress involved?”

“You’re right. It’s strange. It is almost as if those two worlds formed some sort of alliance to attack at the same time. Could Uncle Scotus be behind this?”

Most likely. Just like he was behind the attempt to kill me in the past. But for now, let’s focus on getting to Saitama and help before-

Athena couldn’t finish her thought. Something crimson with black wings approached her with rapid speed from the direction of her destination. The Dream Empress was flying low above the streets and shed feathers, which trapped any hapless civilian in a dream bubble to create propagating dream ghosts. She rapidly ascended when she was right below Athena and didn’t waste any time; just as she was in range, she raised Saturn’s scythe and attempted to bisect Athena with a swift strike towards her midsection which the goddess barely avoided. She channeled a magic beam in her off-hand, thrusting it forward and unleashing unaspected magical energies the villainesses’ way. The masked woman used her scythe for defense, and Athena couldn’t believe her eyes as the beam split cleanly in two on the scythe’s blade, missing the Dream Empress entirely. Still, Athena pointed her spear at her and addressed her.

“You again! Haven’t you learned your lesson the last time? You can’t beat me, nor can you beat Bellona! Not as we are now!” she declared, staring the villainess down.

The woman in the carnival dress didn’t respond. Hollow eyes stared back at Athena, like those of a slavering animal ready to devour its prey.

She’s acting weird. She should be monologuing about all the pain she’d inflict on me, or how she will pluck my dreams from me, or how she’ll have her revenge.

“Come on, talk! What are you here for?!” Athena shouted at the Dream Empress, but there was still no response. The masked woman raised her weapon again and charged Minerva, who barely deflected the strike – one of many that were to follow, precise and with purpose, yet without any human emotion behind them. Athena couldn’t feel the woman’s hatred behind her movements, only surgical precision which was akin to a machine.

The streets below them slowly filled with propagating shades as Minerva was kept busy by the strangely acting woman.

***

‘Hunt and kill Magical Girls. Spread your shades in Tokyo.’

That was the command Taenya gave to Maria, turning her into a living distraction. After she watched her flying off, shedding her black wings’ feathers to create more ghosts, she turned towards the strange city they found themselves in. Many small houses, utterly crude to her eyes, intermingled with what were essentially colored blocks, with giant gates that allowed strange vehicles to dock and receive cargo. Warehouses, the way they worked in this world, at least.

Further in the distance she saw the silver and glass towers dominating the view of the impossibly large city that the humans lived in. If what Maria told her while they prepared for their attack on the Celestial Sisters a few months ago was true, then this entire area was even supposed to be multiple cities that had begun to fuse together.

She turned towards her own group of obedient soldiers, lifting the hand with her command ring.

“Find the warehouses! Scatter the civilians away from them and place the beacons, just as we were instructed!”

The soldiers followed her instructions to the letter. Quickly the doors of the warehouse were broken down, and with brandished spears and magic, the few workers inside were quickly herded out, running from the unknown attackers. While the mind-controlled soldiers went outside and planted the ‘beacons’, as Fames called them, she allowed herself a proper look inside.

Metal shelves, all the way up to the ceiling, were filled with large sacks made from one of the strange materials of this world, but she had the feeling that they weren’t immune to one of her knives. She quickly cut a hole into one of the sacks and stepped back as a small trickle of Earth’s produce fell to the ground. Long, white grains that she had never seen before came rushing out, and she looked on, not sure what to make of it.

“Rice. The staple food of this nation,” a voice spoke from behind which she recognized. She turned around to face Fames, the emissary of the gods.

“…I expected wheat. What is this even for?”

“Boil it in water and you can eat it. I think it should prove… sufficient to feed your people until you can secure fertile soil for your harvests,” Fames spoke with a thin smile. “Now let’s move out so I can demonstrate the… magic to you.”

They moved outside of the warehouse, and Taenya had a look around. They could see a violent clash far away in the sky; red trails collided with red trails, so she reasoned that Maria was currently engaging Minerva Crimson in combat and wouldn’t stop until the Magical Girl or herself were dead, just as Taenya commanded.

The rest of the helmeted soldiers stepped away from the warehouse, following a gesture by the emissary.

“Now you only need to command them to commence the transport,” the emissary told Taenya and she nodded, stretching out her hand.

“Transport!” she commanded, and in a synchronous motion, all the poles extended. The lights on their round tops started to glow before they spun, filling the air with a whirring sound and lighting up the warehouse’s walls. The whirring grew into an unbearable whine, and then a bright flash blinded Taenya for a second. As she looked again, the warehouse was gone, with only a barren patch of dirt marking where it stood before.

“It’s…”

“Back in your world, following the signal your High Enchantress and I set up,” the emissary explained. “I’m sure your mistress is already hard at work handing all of this food out to her starving populace.”

“Knowing her, she is, yes…” Taenya said with a sigh. The High Enchantress was a distant cousin of hers, and as children they spent some time together before she put duty above all else, so she had a bit of an idea what she would do, even with all that cold pragmatism she was forced to adopt with the start of the droughts seventeen years ago.

“Good. Leave those poles and use a fresh set for the next one. And… ah, I think reinforcements just arrived…”

The emissary rubbed her chin, looking at someone behind Taenya. She turned around and blinked as she was faced with a colorful collection of people. A woman in dramatically oversized witch robes that were decorated with skulls greeted her, next to a man who looked like an orc, who carried a large spear on his back. Another was a small rodent, a bipedal rat carrying some kind of projectile weapon that glowed. They looked expectantly at Taenya, and the emissary spoke up.

“Friends from a world one of my relatives is currently visiting. They will assist with setting up the beacons and with keeping any… unwanted visitors away.”

Taenya nodded, but before she could greet their new allies, the orc had already drawn his spear. Before she could even react, even with her superhuman reflexes, he rushed right through her, spear pointed ahead. She only managed to draw her knives as he was already behind her and expected death – but for some reason she was unharmed.

“Tch… one of those that has friendly fire turned off? Boooring!” the orc commented, while Taenya stood there, frozen, taking deep, panicked breaths.

“Ahaha! She looks like she’s pissing herself, Gaelog! You really have to try and mess with every event the devs put out, eh?” the witch cackled.

Taenya didn’t understand a single word they were saying. She swallowed heavily, turning around to face the orc again, keeping her knives raised.

“What’s the meaning of this? Why did you attack me?”

The orc raised a brow and faced her, stepping a little closer.

“Was just messing around. I can’t hurt you. See?”

He swung his spear her way and Taenya immediately moved to block, though something unexpected happened: the spear’s blade simply phased through her blocking daggers, and then through her without doing any damage.

“Guess they’re forcing us to help you… meh, I like the events where I can cause chaos more,” ‘Gaelog’ said, and the rat warrior walked towards them.

“Alright, you had your fun. But can we focus on the quest for now?” the rodent spoke and earned an annoyed look from the orc warrior. The rodent turned towards the emissary.

“We just place these rods we received around the city, yes?”

After a nod from the emissary, the strange figures grinned at each other. The witch weaved a spell and soon the three of them lifted off, flying away towards the city. Only now Taenya noticed that there were various fires burning in the distance, with smoke slowly rising and strange, shrill sounds filling the air – presumably alarms.

“Those three aren’t the only ones. How many ‘allies’ have you summoned?”

“Thousands, though only few will keep to this city. Others will be spread out around this world to explore and… let off steam. Now, back to work! I will be watching,” the emissary spoke before she appeared to vanish into thin air. Taenya grimaced and grabbed the next beacon out of the bag she was carrying.

“On to the next warehouse, you lot! Transport whatever you can!”

“Stop right there!” someone shouted behind her. Another voice she recognized. She turned around and saw her mistresses’ former test subjects descend, landing on the street to face her. Luna and Sol, the so-called ‘Celestial Sisters’, though after the puppeteer’s meddling, there was nothing celestial left in them.

Taenya stopped in the road, signaling for her troops to continue their mission without her before she drew her daggers and assumed a combat stance.

“Your city burns, yet you find time for a humble little thief like me?” she asked in a mocking tone.

“Stop playing dumb. You’re one of the ring leaders of this attack, and we’re going to stop you!” Sol shouted her way.

Taenya gripped her daggers tighter as she stared the black-and-white couple down. She was just another gear in some grand plan, she knew. But right now, she felt no need to correct these mockeries of her mistresses’ divine magic.

Ma Bellona cursed as she flew through the sky. Earlier, Annette arrived in her apartment, and after a quick meeting through Realm of Duels, her worst fears were confirmed to have come true: the Rodent Regiment were the most benign invaders they could have had from Annette’s world. As a roleplaying group, they were more interested in experiencing interesting scenarios, while the many avatars who now poured through portals into the city, on the other hand, were the typical players of a sandbox video game: every building was theirs to destroy, every ‘NPC’ an unwitting punching bag. Some immediately broke away from the city, flying off in the direction of the various military bases across Japan or even in the rest of the world, while others were content to cause chaos in the streets.

The least problematic ones, paradoxically enough, were the ones who followed whatever strange objective the ‘game’ gave them. They planted odd devices across the city, long poles with rotating, glowing lights, only attacking whoever came near them instead of going out of their way to hurt people.

After telling Ayame to stay in a safe location, Miori hurried out and transformed, leading to Bellona’s current flight over the city, while Annette was trying to get in contact with someone in her own world who could tell them how to end this invasion. She wouldn’t be able to help out with her avatar directly, as she informed Miori that the event had ‘friendly fire’ as well as ‘PvP’ turned off.

It was utter chaos: dream bubbles and shades of the Dream Empress were spreading, which ironically kept the citizens safe from the players’ rampage, as they appeared unable to hurt or damage assets of the High Enchantress. Her HUD informed her that Athena was currently engaged in combat above the city, battling the Dream Empress herself. She hoped that she could resolve the issue of the otherworldly players before Maria was defeated, as she didn’t want to think about what would happen to the people of the city if they were suddenly able to be targeted by their overpowered attacks.

Her cyber gladii floated by her side, their tips flicking from side to side as they locked onto new targets every hundred meters or so, owed to the sheer number of enemies below. She didn’t engage them; she knew it would be a fruitless endeavor to fight the players directly, given that they could just respawn after an unspecified amount of time. No, she’d have to find some other solution to their conundrum.

“Arisu…!” she realized suddenly. After her supposed time traveling adventure, her daughter fessed up about her ability to sense the world of origin of any invader she laid eyes upon; to Bellona’s shame, she didn’t even make the connection that this would let her travel to Annette’s world with the help of Mana’s portal spell. After her realization she wasted no time and accessed the functions of Miori’s phone through her suit, opening the chat apps on her HUD to check on Arisu and Mana.

They were unavailable.

“Damn it!” Bellona cursed, looking around frantically. Miyu and Momo, as far as she could tell, were already on the way to Saitama to confront the forces that brought the Dream Empress here, and Athena was occupied. Killing the invaders would be pointless if it wasn’t in service of defending someone or something.

And just as she thought so, she could sense someone who needed her help. Colorful explosions rocked the streets below as three girls fought those strange invaders with all they got.

They were struggling, Bellona could tell that much. An orc wielding a spear attacked them at supersonic speed, and the girls who she could now identify as the Kuma Group only barely managed to dodge his attacks as window fronts shattered from the sheer force of the air his charges displaced. Worse than that, a woman in a witch costume pelted them with fireballs and icicles, while a rodent shot at them with a laser rifle.

Their barrier magic looked weak from overuse, and their movements were sluggish, like they had been fighting these characters for a long time by now. Bellona accelerated towards the scene without hesitation; her own flight broke windows, and she summoned a halberd to her side, aiming for the supernaturally fast orc. He had his spear raised, trying to impale one of the girls who had fallen to the ground – and then he found himself bisected by lasers shooting from Bellona’s gladii before she landed and followed it up by cleaving him top to bottom, just to make sure.

She heard some surprised and relieved gasps around her as the orc dissipated into multiple colorful cubes, and she immediately faced the witch.

“Sorry, our world already has enough witches.”

She rushed her, and the surprised woman’s eyes widened as Bellona took off her head with a precise strike. She immediately felt heat in her shoulder as laser shots hit the protective plating and faced the rodent. She sent out her gladii, and the creature cursed as they swarmed it – after a quick exchange of fire, the rodent had also exploded in a colorful array of cubes, and the street went quiet, with the exception of the unnerving whispers of the dream shades, only a hundred meters away.

“Are you unharmed?” she asked, turning towards the Kuma Group. She saw some bruises and scratches, and some torn dresses, but otherwise the girls appeared to be healthy.

“Who are they? I’ve never seen anyone move so fast…!” one of the girls complained.

Rei, if Bellona recalled correctly: a girl with cyan hair, and mechanical bear claw gloves that she could punch her opponents with, assisted by various propulsion jets on her outfit. Minerva was the one who had regular contact with them, but Bellona saw them once or twice in the past year. The girl looked a little pale, all things considered.

“They are the same kind of invaders as the Rodent Regiment. You can’t kill them permanently, they just come back,” Bellona explained, and as Rei fell on her knees and breathed a little heavier, she stepped to the girl’s side, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Are you sure that you’re alright? You’re pale. Are you sick?”

The girl shook her head, wiping sweat off her brow.

“It’s… it’s alright… I just… shortly after the invasion began, it was like the air changed. It kind of… it makes me nauseous.”

Bellona stared at the girl for a moment longer, then something caught her attention: a strange, blinding light erupted around one of the nearby residential buildings, making her avert her eyes for a moment, and as she looked back it was entirely gone – and that’s when she felt it: waves of magic flooded the area, like someone opened a window in a particularly stuffy building and let fresh air inside. Bellona felt the mana wash over her, and then Rei screamed, holding her head.

She tore off the bear-ear shaped headset of the Kuma Group and Bellona could witness animal ears growing out of her skull. Whenever the girl opened her eyes between pained gasps and screams, Bellona could witness that the color of her pupils had changed as well. Deep golden eyes looked up at Bellona, while wolf ears, with fur matching the colorful hair grew from the girl’s head, and soon a cyan tail followed, creeping out from under her skirt.

“What’s happening to her?!” Sarina, the Kuma Group’s girl in yellow, demanded to know, and Bellona grimaced as she finally understood.

“Whatever they’re doing that’s transporting those buildings away is flooding our world with magic… she’s mutating, just like another girl I know! Bring her away for now! You’re almost out of energy anyway, aren’t you? Go hide somewhere!” she commanded the girls and they nodded, grabbing Rei and escorting her out of the danger zone. However, one person remained with Bellona, if one could even call it a person.

“I’ll fight for as long as I have energy left. Luckily Minerva’s clash with the Shadow Empress didn’t cause me to expend more magic than I absorbed,” Kuma declared in his soulless little stuffed bear appearance, and Bellona nodded his way. She saw a number of figures approaching her again and readied her weapon; she wouldn’t let these ‘players’ progress into any part of the city in which they could hurt human beings.

A man in what appeared to be futuristic armor approached her at high speed, swinging an energy sword. Bellona evaded his swing with a quick jump to the side and created an energy blade of her own in her hand, while her flying gladii circled her assailant. He struck one and made it fall to the ground, though the others hit him with point-blank laser shots, keeping him busy enough for Bellona to close the distance with a quick step and end the fight with a rapid slash across his chest. Rainbow cubes filled the air before they dissipated, but she didn’t get any time to celebrate her victory as more of the ‘players’ approached her, keeping the pressure of their attacks up in hopes of overwhelming her.

She only felt some pressure let off as the plush mascot next to her opened a portal and a giant, grotesque creature with a bulbous head sporting a maw full of razor-sharp needle teeth emerged. And then, she finally saw the status of her daughter changing to ‘online’ on her HUD, as well.

“Mama tried to reach us earlier…!” Arisu exclaimed with some worry, looking at her phone after her, Mana and Marisa jumped through a portal into Tokyo. There was smoke rising from various places, and the streets were filled with shades mimicking people’s dreams and aspirations, walking around aimlessly until they spotted the trio. She recalled them from her mamas’ memories: these were a manifestation of the Dream Empresses’ powers, a woman who assaulted her mamas and indirectly led to Arisu’s birth by forcing them to retreat to Grandpa Jove’s world.

The shades closed in all at once, and Arisu quickly summoned her bow to her side, drawing the string and letting loose untold numbers of target-seeking arrows of light that arched through the air and hit each of the phantoms dead center, dispelling them. There were bubbles as well, in which people were trapped, and slowly created more phantoms. Mana and Marisa were about to pop them and free the occupants as Arisu got a notification on her phone.

“Wait!”

“Why? If we hesitate, we have to deal with the next wave of ghosts!” Marisa complained, but Arisu shook her head, paraphrasing the message she just got.

“There’s more than just the Dream Empress here. Mama says there’s elf soldiers whose helmets enslave them and also enemies who can just come back if they’re killed, but they can’t hurt the people in the bubbles right now because they’re on the same team as the Dream Empress, so that’s where they are the safest…”

Mana groaned and ran a hand through her hair.

“So that’s the players from Ka’zarr’s world. I guess we can’t count on the Rodent Regiment to help us…”

“But I can see where they’re from!” Arisu declared, quickly sending that information to her mother as well.

“What would… oh!” Mana spoke and exchanged a look with Marisa, who nodded.

“I guess that’s what we’re going to do: we’re targeting the ‘players’ and take them out of the game… permanently.”

***

Their search for a player wasn’t particularly long. They could hear the distinct noise of a magical clash from nearby and rushed to investigate, skipping rows of houses entirely by using Mana’s portals.

After emerging on the other side, they saw the Flower Brigade engaged in combat, both against the phantoms that attempted to encase them in dream bubbles, as well as a woman who could only be described as a bunny girl – both referring to her style of dress and her features. She was a human with large bunny ears on her head that flopped around with her movement, which was mostly carried by her muscular legs, which she used as her primary tool of offense as well.

Cherry, the pink Magical Girl of the Flower Brigade only barely managed to dodge a kick aimed at her head and looked as pale as a ghost as she witnessed how the attack created a wide crater in the asphalt. She stood there, frozen, appearing unable to even raise her rapier to counterattack.

Violet and Rose were nearby, though every time they tried to get involved in the fight, they had to fend off a dream phantom. Violet shouted Cherry’s name as she swung her whip in a wide arc, letting the thorns cleave through the phantoms. She made it just in time to wrap the thorned whip around the attacking bunny girl’s leg as she was about to spin around, aiming a kick at Cherry’s head once more.

The attacker stumbled, and the thorns scratched her artificial body, letting rainbow light seep through holes in her skin. Her head snapped towards Violet and she rushed her, quicker than Violet could even pull the whip taut to control her opponent’s body. Cherry and Rose both screamed as the bunny girl went for another deadly kick, aiming to finally decapitate one of her opponents – and then she hit an immovable object, with an audible crack coming from her leg and the invisible wall both after the impact created a shockwave and shattered the barrier soon after.

Marisa stood in front of Violet, quickly erecting another barrier while Mana got in position, facing the player’s flank.

“Dox her, Arisu!” Mana shouted, and Arisu obeyed. By looking at the bunny girl, she could feel the polluted air on her tongue, could hear the noise of a city that never sleeps. She touched Mana’s shoulder, and the witch opened a portal right next to her, though she quickly cursed as the bunny girl’s head snapped around towards them both and she rushed them after spotting them.

Seconds felt like minutes as the portal opened, and Arisu could spy an apartment with metallic walls on the other side. She saw raindrops hammering against a large window that formed the wall of a sleeping niche, with the body of a middle-aged woman lying inside, her face covered by what looked like a VR headset.

“Atomize!” Mana shouted and flinched as the next kick was coming for her head. Arisu could watch the woman on the bed wake up, panicking as her headset disintegrated, while the bunny girl’s body went limp and simply crashed against another barrier that Marisa erected to protect the pair, then the player’s avatar simply blinked out of existence.

“What the shit?! Who the hell are you? What happened to my dive gear? What are you doing in my-”

The woman’s curses were cut short as Mana closed the portal. The witch suddenly shivered and fell to her knees on the asphalt, letting out a deep breath that she probably held the entire fight.

“…I thought I was going to die!” she complained, and Marisa quickly hurried to her side, touching her shoulder.

“I wouldn’t let that happen! You know that, Mana.”

Arisu looked at her own hand and found it shaking.

“How many ‘players’ are in the city…? How many more times do we have to do this?” Mana asked breathlessly, and Arisu clenched her hand to hide her own nerves from her girlfriends.

“Thousands,” Arisu admitted, letting her shoulders hang. She looked towards the Flower Brigade, who now assembled around them.

“Thanks…” Cherry said quietly, looking at the ground. There was no hint of her usual tsundere self in the tone she spoke that single word, and Arisu could clearly see that she was shaken to her core by this fight. The entire Flower Brigade was. None of them had ever gotten as close to dying as they did today.

“Don’t mention it… are you hurt?” Marisa spoke up. She probably held up the best among all of them, walking from person to person. She inspected the Flower Brigade girls for bruises and quickly applied her healing magic where necessary. None of them even realized that she was the girl from a year ago who they saw fighting Mana.

In the distance, the low rumble of giant footsteps could be heard, and Kuma, the patron of the Kuma Group stepped into view, towering above the rooftops. A blue light danced around him, which Arisu quickly identified as Mama Bellona. She fended off more ‘players’ in tandem with her giant companion, and the city around them was showered in rainbow cubes.

“This is insane!” Rose spoke up, and as Arisu looked at her, she could see tears in her eyes.

“Is this the end of the world?! All of these things are coming for us at once! We can’t deal with all of that! Not like this!”

Rose buried her face in her hands and audibly sobbed, and for a few moments, her crying was the only sound in the street, except the occasional arrow spells piercing dream shades that were about to emerge from the surrounding bubbles.

“You should get yourselves to safety,” Arisu spoke and got on her feet.

“We can remove these dangerous people, but we can’t guarantee your safety if you stay out here. Withdraw and keep the dream shades away from the people who haven’t been affected yet. Hide!” she told them, and the Flower Brigade hesitated.

“…you can’t be serious,” Cherry suddenly growled, and Arisu’s eyes widened as the girl grabbed her shoulders, shouting at her.

“No! The entire city is in danger! You can’t just tell us to leave now!”

Arisu turned her head towards Mana to request her help, but her cat-eared girlfriend just shook her head.

“Our original idea isn’t working, anyway, so here’s what we’re going to do: you and Marisa go to Bellona and support her, while I’m going to go to Nicola and ask her for advice.”

Mana turned towards Cherry, taking long, decisive steps towards her and looking her in the eyes intensely.

“You remember me, yes? It was me who solved our issue the last time, and I’ll solve it this time as well. So: do as we tell you and defend the people from the phantoms while we deal with the overpowered guys. Got it?”

The tsundere looked like she wanted to protest and curse Mana besides, but her leader, Violet, put a hand on her shoulder and she let out a resigned, but still utterly annoyed sigh.

“Fine! But if you don’t save the world like you promised, I’ll let you have it! Got it?!” the pink Magical Girl complained, and Mana grinned.

“It’s a promise.”