Magical Girl Overtime [Second Arc Complete!]

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“Any luck so far, Uncle Janus?” Arisu asked, hopping into the white void through one of Mana’s portals, followed by the witches in black and white both. The sight in front of them was a two-faced giant of a man, sitting cross-legged on the ground of his strange, infinite domain and inspecting the key he was currently assembling to enter the world that Mama Miori had vanished to. It was an electric keycard, made to fit the ‘lock’, the scanner on the metallic door in front of him. The small plastic card reminded Arisu of the cards she used to enter the train station.

“I’m afraid not, my darling niece. This task is far more complex than I could have anticipated. Loathe as I am to admit it, Nox is my equal by every metric, and hiding worlds from the eyes of outsiders is one of her specialties. It wouldn’t surprise me if we found out that she shrouded Scotus’ domain the same way to prevent you from coming for the mastermind.”

“Well, that’s frustrating. Even though I know exactly where he lives…” Marisa grumbled, extending her arm and visibly trying to cast her Portal spell, but nothing happened.

“You’re right, it’s locked,” she huffed in an annoyed tone, clenching her hand into a fist. Janus gave her a shrug in return.

“If only things were ever that easy…” he mused, before he stood up and faced Arisu.

“It’s a matter of days until I break through her barriers, but I understand that time is of the essence, with your mothers being trapped on the other side, but maybe we can expedite the process a little. Say, did anything from that other world end up in yours?”

Mana turned her head towards the two and shrugged.

“The invaders were all projections. Nothing more than hard light that disappeared when they got destroyed. Other than that, we have…”

She stopped, and Arisu could tell what she just remembered, so she finished for her.

“The rods with the pieces from the other world! How much do you need, Uncle Janus?”

The giant man rubbed one of his chins ponderously before he gave his answer.

“A dozen of those rods should suffice to give me enough of the ethereal signature which Nox currently obscures from me.”

“Great! Let’s get them!” Arisu declared immediately. It was a small hope, and she immediately latched on to it – anything to help her mama who was currently stuck in another world.

Mana, however, looked a little worried.

“By now Triple-Eye must have combed the entire city for those rods…” she mumbled, and Arisu felt her heart sink.

“Does it matter? We’ll just steal them from right under their noses if they have them!” Marisa declared boisterously and opened a portal to Tokyo before Mana could even say anything. She made eye contact with Arisu and grinned.

“With the three of us, I’m sure that we can make it work! Don’t give me any excuses now, Mana! This is for Arisu’s mama!”

Marisa immediately hopped through her portal and Arisu could watch Mana’s shoulders droop in real time as she realized that Marisa had taken charge with no room for disagreement.

“Ugh… well, what can you do…” Mana grumbled, then she gave Arisu a little smile.

“I feel like she’s overcompensating for the time she was fused with Doppelgänger. Oh well, let’s try to keep up with her!”

Arisu nodded, and together they followed through the portal – into her own home, she noticed.

***

December 2025

“My? Welcome back, Arisu. And you brought back Mana and Marisa, as well. Are you going to stay for dinner?”

Mama Ayame sat by the kitchen table, with Amicitia’s gemstone in her hand. Arisu guessed that the little trio intruded on a talk the two had.

“We’ll be on our way, but thank you for the offer, Miss Takeuchi!” Marisa spoke quickly and even bowed before Mama Ayame before hurrying towards the door, followed by Mana, who turned around, tilting her head at Arisu.

“Are you coming, Arisu?”

“Just a moment!” she spoke quickly, then she hurried to her mother’s side, putting a hand on Amicitia.

“What were you talking about?” she asked them, though she only received a conspiratorial grin from Mama Ayame in return.

“Oh, nothing in particular,” she spoke quickly, with a strange glimmer in her eyes.

“Nothing untowards,” Amicitia confirmed, only fueling Arisu’s suspicions.

“…you’re keeping secrets from me,” Arisu said with a little pout – and then mama Ayame patted her head and leaned close to plant a little kiss on her forehead.

“We were really just chatting to get to know each other better. To clear the air, since Amicitia was involved with Scotus and the rest of his family. Mutual trust can only start when we both understand each other, hm? I’ll make sure that Seika and Miori get the same chance to talk to her like that as well.”

Arisu nodded, yet she couldn’t help but feel like there were still some details that her mama kept quiet about. She wanted to ask a follow-up question, as Marisa’s voice came from the doorway.

“Are you done? If we want to collect those rods, we need every second!”

“Uh… okay, I’m coming! Sheesh.”

Mama Ayame sighed, patting Arisu’s head and pulling her in for a quick hug.

“You’re going to do something dangerous again, aren’t you?”

Arisu shifted uncomfortably in place. Despite her supernatural nature, she felt bad making her mother worry about her.

“Probably… I don’t really know.”

“You know, as a parent it would usually be my duty to tell you off and stop you from doing what you’re about to do, but I can already guess that you’re going out there to save the world. Just like your other mothers.”

She let out a heavy sigh, but as Arisu got released from the hug, Mama Ayame gave her a bright smile instead of the expected worried expression.

“Go, then and save the world, hm?”

Their destination was one of the empty plots of land in the inner city – one of those that the invaders from the Rodent Regiment’s world made to vanish with their strange technology. The trio hopped from portal to portal, into side alleys that were ever closer to their goal, from where they could steal a glance at their surroundings.

The streets were emptier than usual. People remained inside out of fear that another attack on the scale of the invasion could happen. The large screens on the major crossings were constantly reporting about the municipal government trying to reestablish order and normalcy, while government buildings were faced with large numbers of protesters, demanding an immediate investigation into the vanishing buildings and people.

They were mostly made up of relatives of the abducted, who could only put their hopes in the higher authorities, or even the higher powers, as they saw when they emerged near Inari’s shrine. Mana turned a little pale around the nose as she saw a large crowd of otaku gathered on the shrine grounds, engaged in fervent prayer.

“Oh no…”

“Hm? What’s up, Mana?” Marisa asked nonchalantly, stopping short of opening the next portal as Mana turned away from the streets and pushed her back against the nearest wall, with a bead of sweat running down her forehead.

“It’s, uh… it’s the guys I sent to Inari’s place to keep them safe while I was freeing Rinko. I couldn’t have them stay around to be turned into bubbles again, but, uh…”

“They noticed that the place they were in was something ‘divine’ to their sensibilities, is what you mean to say,” a familiar voice spoke, and Mana quickly let out an ‘ow, ow, ow!’ as Inari, dressed like a shrine maiden, stood behind her and pulled on her cat ear.

“I-I’m sorry! I just wanted to keep them safe and couldn’t think of another place!” Mana stammered, and Inari let out a long sigh before she let go of her ear.

“Oh well, what can we do. What matters is that they’re all safe. Maybe, if I don’t ‘answer’ their prayers noticeably for a while they will leave the notion of a revived religious movement in my name well alone…”

Inari looked out of the side alley towards the torii gates and the gathered crowd, letting out a little huff.

“Uhm… what are you doing out here anyway, miss Inari?” Arisu now asked, and the goddess turned her head towards the girl.

“Ah! Well, I got curious. Ever since that massive ruckus, I felt like the world had become suffused with magical energies… reminiscent of the old times, when your kin walked this Earth, young Deogemma.”

Inari held out a hand, and a blue flame danced in her open palm.

“And would you know it? It’s not as potent as back in the day, but bit by bit, magic is returning to this world. Not as a small trickle as it had the past seventeen years, but as a steady flow, like a creek.”

“Well, that’s nice and all, but we’re in a hurry,” Marisa grumbled and opened a portal to their next destination – this one right next to their ultimate destination: a perfect square of concrete where a building stood only yesterday.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll accompany you,” Inari spoke, and the trio all turned towards her in surprise.

“Don’t look at me like that! The sound of the new fervent prayers is deafening, and now that I can use a part of my powers on the outside. I’m curious about the recent happenings, so take me along already!”

***

Their next stop was in the middle of town. Large office buildings lined the busy main street, with one notorious gap, which the quartet landed on. It was surrounded by barrier tape, though Arisu could tell from a distance that it was not placed there by the police.

No few heads turned as they noticed the two witches, accompanied by a shrine maiden and a one-eyed middle schooler, and Arisu cleared her throat as she noticed their stares.

“...this is a little exposed, isn’t it?” she mumbled, and Marisa simply shrugged.

“Weirder things happened only a few days ago, I don’t think we’re that particularly strange.”

“Well, some people are still staring,” Mana grumbled, then she pointed around the empty space.

“Come on, let’s find those rods and get out of here before someone tries to call Triple-Eye or other Magical Girls on us.”

The group split up and scanned the area. Arisu found multiple pipes and cables that came out of the ground, though upon further inspection, those were only the lines for gas, water and power, which had already been turned off by the city after the building’s disappearance. Arisu vaguely recalled that a news report warned about the possibility of gas explosions shortly after the invasion, as well as the risk of electrocution if people approached these suddenly open lines.

“What are you doing in there? It’s dangerous!” a woman shouted from the side, and Arisu wheeled around. It was an older lady, who looked her way with some worry in her eyes. Arisu grimaced and looked for the others, but she immediately felt a hand on her shoulder.

“They are with me. I wished to see the place with my own eyes so that I may pray for the missing people’s safe return and had these girls lead the way,” Inari quickly lied, making intense eye contact with the woman in front of them.

“W-well… please don’t go and get children involved in such dangerous activities, priestess!”

“Don’t worry, we will be gone, soon,” Inari assured the woman, who nodded and walked off in a huff.

“Ugh… we’re really exposed here after all,” Arisu mumbled, and Inari let out a little sigh.

“Let us find what you’re looking for and leave as soon as possible, then.” Inari confirmed, and Arisu nodded, hurrying to scan the place. However, after a few more minutes of carefully searching the grounds, she came up with nothing, aside from a hole in the concrete with several cracks radiating from it.

“Not good, the rods were already removed,” Marisa grumbled as she approached the two. She glanced towards the street and approached the barricade tape, inspecting it.

“They were already here,” she said with an exasperated voice, showing the tape to Mana and Arisu. The tape had words that were repeated over and over printed on it, with a logo of two red eyes and a third, purple one. It read ‘Keep out! Salvage is property of Triple-Eye!’.

“Well, if this one’s a dud, we need to check out the rest, yes?” Arisu suggested, and the others nodded.

No matter where the quartet went, it was all the same. Barricade tape was pulled around the empty lots, with the strange rods that established a connection to other worlds gone. Triple-Eye had already looted every location, even the missing warehouses out in Saitama. Mana let out a frustrated hiss as she tore down one of the tape barriers and paced up and down.

“Calm yourself, young Bakeneko,” Inari spoke to her, but Mana kept pacing, shaking her head as she frantically looked around.

“What for? Those rods are the only chance to get early to Miss Takeuchi, and this company grabbed everything!” she complained loudly, but Marisa quickly stepped towards her and grabbed her by the collar of her robes, pulling her closer.

“As I told you, if they have it, we’ll just grab them right from under their noses!”

Mana grumbled and turned her head to the side. Arisu tilted her head, confused by the strange display of a hesitant Mana, then she turned her head towards Inari.

“The young Bakeneko is worried about what might happen to you all if you go against this ‘Triple-Eye’ directly,” the goddess spoke – and judging by Mana’s glance to the side, she was correct in her assessment.

“I fully understand, Mana,” Inari continued, stepping towards the witch and patting her head. Mana looked up in surprise, tilting her head as Inari continued.

“Over the past decade, some of the yokai I’ve known, both hostile and friendly types, went missing, and no one knew where. I assume that they were hunted down, with this organization seeing them as little more than ‘otherworldly treasure’, like leftover artifacts.”

Mana grimaced, avoiding looking at the goddess directly.

“They’d take Arisu in once they see her eye, I’m sure.”

Arisu narrowed her eyes and showed Mana a big pout to clearly communicate what she thought of that particular worry.

“You know that I’m strong, Mana! You don’t have to be so worried about me!”

“But-” Mana started, but Marisa cut her off.

“I don’t think the four of us can be subdued that easily. Just remember how much power we wield together!”

“Ugh…” Mana grumbled, and Arisu blinked, giving Marisa a questioning look. The redhead grinned in return.

“Come on, Mana… tell her about the chaos we caused in the past when we fought! You only ever told her about the witch hunts, but I know that you’ve recently learned what that other thing we did is called nowadays!”

Mana squirmed in place and twitched as Marisa poked her side with a finger. She shook her head, trying to look the other way, but then, once she realized that there was no way out of her predicament, she let out a long sigh and mumbled something.

“…guska event…”

Arisu tilted her head and stepped closer. “What did you say?”

“We caused the Tunguska Event, the big explosion above Siberia more than a hundred years ago!” Marisa declared. She looked proud of that fact for some reason.

“It wasn’t a meteor; it was two fireballs clashing and merging! Our fireballs!”

Mana looked mortified by the way Marisa recounted the tale, but Arisu was amazed. She immediately shuffled closer to Mana, grabbing her hands and looking her in the eyes, with awe radiating from her eye.

“You did that?! You’re that powerful?”

Her overly excited outburst was cut short, however, as Inari gently grabbed both the witch and the eyepatch-wearing girl by the collars of their outfits and pulled them apart.

“Focus, young Deogemma. We’re not here to exchange heroic tales, but to find a way to retrieve these objects that you are seeking. Do you have any way of finding their whereabouts?”

Mana was still grumbling about Marisa’s earlier outburst, but then she pondered Inari’s question. It only took her a few moments before she came up with a plan.

***

Moon of Long Nights, 1068 AR

The quartet entered Auntie Nicola’s workshop, and the sound of wood being carved greeted them. The silver-haired woman looked up from her work bench, with clear rings under her eyes. The workbench had a dozen finished marionettes on display already, only waiting for the puppeteer’s magic to grow and animate them.

“Ah… guests. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Auntie Nicola spoke with a weak smile, though her eyes rested on Inari for a long time after.

“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure yet.”

“Oh, I am but a humble shrine maiden,” Inari spoke with a little grin, and Auntie Nicola let out a groan in response.

“More ‘gods’ enter my city which I once declared off limits for them,” she spoke with feigned bitterness, turning around to continue carving the marionette while she was unable to hide the raised corner of her mouth.

“What are you here for, then?”

“We need to see the rod. And we need locator rings to sniff out more like it,” Mana spoke, and Nicola nodded.

“Your friend Stevyn has made himself at home in the dungeon next to the treasure chamber and keeps poking at it. You will have everything you need in one convenient location,” she explained and let out a long sigh, looking at her small group of marionettes. Arisu put a hand on Nicola’s arm, and the aristocrat turned her head.

“You should get some rest, auntie.”

“Oh, don’t even start, Arisu. Hifumi has already been nagging me, but I need to replenish the soldiers that I lost.”

“You can have Rinko help out during an emergency if your soldiers aren’t fully replenished yet,” Arisu insisted, and Nicola let out a long sigh before she leaned back in her chair.

“Fine! But only because you’re looking at me with puppy eyes. And because Hifumi would probably be upset if I refused to rest any longer.” she declared with a little groan, then as Arisu lowered her eyes, she felt Nicola’s hand on her head, patting her.

“I’ll go get some sleep while you do what you came here to do.”

3

The dungeon had been turned into a laboratory. Rotting torture devices had been pushed aside or removed entirely, and chrome-colored metal furniture took their place. A strange glass cylinder stood in the corner, with a gemstone hovering inside. It connected to the glass shell with lightning arcs like a plasma globe, and Mana had the feeling that this was a magical source of electricity for the lab setup, as futuristic computer terminals were currently being used by Stevyn and his wife Claudia, who exchanged words as they studied what Arisu assumed to be a scan of one of the dimensional rods.

“Hm? Oh, Mana and her friends,” Stevyn spoke, moving away from his station and approaching the quartet.

“And I don’t think we know each other yet,” he spoke as he made eye contact with Inari. Claudia locked her own terminal and walked up to the little group. Mana felt all sorts of conflicting feelings as she saw her approach, throwing a quick glance towards Marisa and Arisu, but before she knew it, Claudia’s hand was on her head, patting her gently.

“I never got to say it, Mana, but thank you… for keeping him alive.”

“…it’s my fault, though…” Mana mumbled, but Claudia wouldn’t have it.

“No. ‘Filo’ orchestrated all of it. And even she was forced to do so, from what I’ve read.”

They could hear a gasp from Stevyn as he finally realized what Inari truly was – and he immediately pelted her with all sorts of questions. Claudia tossed a quick glance their way before she turned towards Marisa.

“Hello, Marisa! I’m Claudia. I’ve been watching over you for the past year… and you’re finally free from that spellbook, I hear?”

Marisa nodded, though Mana could tell that the girl must have felt even more guilty than her. She struggled to make eye contact with that woman, who only had a smile for her, and then for Arisu as she turned her way.

“And hello to you as well. Arisu, I guess?”

Arisu nodded, then Claudia turned back around to Mana.

“I’m just glad that everything worked out. Sort of… but I doubt you came here for pleasantries. What do you need?”

Mana cleared her throat and pointed at the devices that were currently scanning the rod’s internals.

“We need the implant that you showed us, and the rod. Just a little so we can have a signature for a locator ring.”

“You’re trying to find more of them?” Claudia asked with a raised brow, turning towards her machines. She walked the last few steps and opened the box that was obviously the scanner part of her small laboratory, fetching the dimensional anchor rod.

“What have you been doing with it, anyway?” Mana asked as the scientist returned, putting the rod into the witches’ hands.

“We tried to figure out where the rods themselves were coming from. The initial assumption was that they were manufactured in that highly advanced world, same as the implants that were embedded inside. However, that was not the case.”

“And where are they from, then?” Mana prodded Claudia, who looked a little uncomfortable with her findings.

“They’re from Earth. Your Earth.”

December 2025

After jumping back to Earth, the quartet wasted no time looking for other rods with the locator ring out of Nicola’s treasury. Mana held the eye implant in one hand and the ring in the other, and Arisu watched her with some interest as the witch clenched her eyes shut.

“Guide us to… items that come from the same place as this one!” Mana declared and the ring in her hand glowed with innate magic power. The witch nodded as the ring crumbled to dust in her open palm and opened a portal. Arisu saw warehouses on the other side and could smell the ocean nearby, clueing her in on the fact that this warehouse was in Tokyo Bay.

They all quickly hopped through the opening in reality and had a look around. The warehouses all looked identical to Arisu’s eyes, but the magic from the locator ring was still guiding Mana, making her walk ahead and turn a corner, where she abruptly stopped and gestured for the rest to do the same.

“I think this is it, but…”

“But what?” Marisa asked, walking ahead to peek around the corner, past Mana. She grumbled quietly after seeing something that displeased her.

“Armed guards? For a warehouse?”

Arisu approached the corner and peeked around it as well, and just as the two said, there were two men wearing black uniforms with body armor. Their faces were obscured by masks, but the badges on their chests identified them as employees of Triple-Eye. However, Arisu’s attention was quickly on something else entirely.

Both the men standing guard had an otherworldly aura about them. One of them was a human, from Capitolium, while the other was a shapeshifter from a world Arisu didn’t recognize. Both looked a little uncomfortable with their weapons, suggesting that the technology of their world was at a different stage – at least that was a certainty for the man from Capitolium.

“…are we just going to open a portal inside, then?” Marisa asked, and Mana nodded.

“I’d like them to be far away so they can’t notice us, though…” Mana mused, and Inari let out a chuckle. She simply walked past them and approached the two guards, who nervously looked her way.

“Halt! This is private property!”

“Oh, but I’m not on the property yet, am I?”

“I… don’t get cocky!” the man from Capitolium shouted, and the goddess sighed. She gestured behind her back, weaving a spell. Blue orbs of fire appeared behind the guards, dancing in the air. The shapeshifter noticed them before the human did; he turned around and his clothes ripped as he tried to transform, but he was immediately engulfed in blue flames, then the man next to him. They looked like they were screaming, but no sound came out, then they simply fell to the ground.

“…did you kill them?” Marisa asked as the trio ran up to the goddess, and the woman looked a little upset as soon as she heard the question.

“Goodness, no! It was a mere illusion. It didn’t even feel like they were burning, they were merely put to sleep.”

“The panicked flailing made it look worse,” Mana commented dryly and Inari let out a long sigh.

“Never mind that, let’s just go inside already.”

Mana nodded, opening a portal in the front door, and the trio stepped inside. It was a regular warehouse from what Arisu could tell, though she had never been inside one. Shelves were stacked with crates, with an unused forklift parked in a corner, forming a maze. Marisa immediately walked up to one of the crates which was labelled ‘TRANSPORT TO SITE-3’ and lifted the lid, raising a brow.

“What’s this?” she asked, and the rest came closer. The crate was filled with strange artifacts, glittering remnants of light-emitting cubes, prayer beads, and even a very old-looking white kimono. Inari stepped closer and grew pale as she saw the kimono in particular.

“I wondered where she might… no…!” Inari exclaimed and ran off into the rest of the storage facility. Arisu blinked and followed her, turning around for just a moment.

“I’ll follow her! You go and look for the rods in those crates!”

Inari hurried through the corridors, and after turning a corner she froze in place. Arisu ended up next to her and could see what the goddess was looking at: there were multiple glass tubes, filled with a strange blue liquid, and inside were the suspended bodies of people and creatures.

Arisu recognized one of them; Okumo floated in the solution, in her spider form, with her throat slit by her own leg and her chest perforated in multiple places where Arisu hit her with her arrows. Right next to her was a creature that looked like a traditional paper lamp, with eyes and a big mouth, which had a large chunk of its paper body ripped out. In one tube over, a pale woman floated in the nude. She looked unharmed, though Arisu questioned whether she could be alive, being submerged in that odd liquid.

They weren’t alone. A man wearing a bright yellow protective suit stood in front of the tubes with a notepad, who was busy talking to someone over the headset integrated in his suit.

“The specimens are still in stable condition, but we can’t ensure quality if they remain here much longer. I understand that logistics took a major hit by the latest incursion, but they need to be transported to the proper facilities ASAP, either the local sites one to three, or…”

He noticed Inari’s reflection in the glass tube as she stepped closer and quickly turned around.

“Oh, shit…!”

Arisu struggled to comprehend the sheer rage that Inari expressed next. With a scream, she charged the man, punching through the protective plastic visor of his hazmat suit and grabbing the man inside by the throat.

He kicked his legs and choked as the goddess lifted him off the ground, looking him in the eyes.

“They were harmless! Lantern ghosts are harmless, and you killed him anyway! You killed Hiro! You slaughtered him like an animal! All he ever did was make silly faces and entertain children!”

The goddess broke her charade, and a tail broke through her shrine maiden outfit, then it split into multiples. At first Arisu expected them to be nine tails, but a tenth split from the rest, marking her as the supreme deity reigning over foxes and kitsune alike.

“And Kiyo! She only ever craved love! The only pain she caused was heartbreak for men who couldn’t keep her secret! And you… you kill her and display her so shamefully like a trophy!”

The goddess slammed the struggling man against the tube holding the pale woman, which cracked and leaked the blue liquid in a steady stream from where shards were pushed out by the fluid’s pressure. Arisu could hear the man struggling to breathe, yet she was too shocked by the goddesses’ outburst to even speak up, standing there and bearing silent witness to her divine wrath as a muffled voice coming from the man’s headset demanded to know what was going on.

“I should burn you alive with fox fire! I should curse your entire bloodline into abject poverty! I should let the fields of your homeland lay barren and I should…!”

Inari interrupted herself as the blue liquid around her feet froze and looked towards the tank. The woman inside had her eyes wide open, with their piercing, almost luminescent blue focused on Inari. Her hands desperately pushed against the glass of her containment, and Inari immediately came to her rescue. She engulfed the man with the same trick flame as she did the guards and tossed him aside, then she put all her strength into punching and cracking the large glass tube.

Arisu quickly jumped in, transforming and using her own superhuman strength to crack the glass open, until the entirety of the blue liquid spilled out – as it touched Arisu, she immediately realized why the supposed yokai occupant was powerlessly trapped. It was barely noticeable from the short contact she had, but this liquid slowly drained her of her supernatural strength.

“Hey! We found the rods! We have about a dozen of them, and… what did we miss?!” Mana shouted as her and Marisa turned the corner.

***

“In all my years, I’ve never been so humiliated…” Kiyo spoke after finally getting herself dressed in the kimono the quartet found near the entrance. Once dressed, the yuki-onna had a look at Inari, then the group.

“My thanks for rescuing me, coincidental as it was…” she spoke to Arisu and the witches, then she turned towards the goddess standing next to her, who held the dead lamp ghost in her arms, cradling it as respectfully as she could. They even freed Okumo’s body from the glass tube, leaving it covered under a sheet they found in another crate, while the three Triple-Eye employees, still knocked out cold, sat in a corner of the room, tied together.

“Inari Okami… I thought you couldn’t use your powers outside,” she spoke with some amazement.

“Some things happened, and this world has seen an increase in magic, Kiyo. More importantly, are you alright? What happened to you?” Inari spoke quietly, while her fingers brushed over the ‘forehead’ of the dead lamp ghost.

“It would appear my latest lover was just like the others, and these… people… followed the rumor mill after he talked about me,” Kiyo spoke bitterly, then she shook her head.

“I will be alright from here on out, but it… it’s hard, you know? Not being able to trust the men I fall in love with.”

“Right… I think we should hurry and bring these to Janus,” Mana spoke quickly, and Arisu could tell that she could still barely hide her ongoing amazement about the existence of kami and yokai and chose to flee those feelings instead of letting them show.

“We should,” Arisu agreed, turning towards Inari.

“Are you going to come with us?”

“No. I would have, but now I need to see that Hiro gets a proper burial. Okumo should get one, too, no matter what she did. You go and help your mothers save the world,” Inari said with a sad little smile, and Arisu nodded.

She turned around, walking over to Mana and Marisa, but she stopped as she heard something odd. Beautiful, yet somber singing, in a language she couldn’t understand even with her innate translation magic. She looked around to find the source, and then she saw the faintest outlines of people around her, with long ears. The strange, dazzling sight only lasted for a moment, then it was gone again, and Arisu recalled news reports about odd sightings in the city since the attack.

“The barriers between worlds grow ever thinner. I hope your mother will be able to restore things to their proper order,” Inari said, and Arisu nodded. She was more determined than ever to help her mamas.