Magical Girl Overtime [Second Arc Complete!]

February 2026

He was invited as a guest, but he had no illusions about this being anything other than an interrogation. Stevyn awkwardly corrected the seat of the tie he was wearing as he was led through a large double-winged door, into a circular room. A curved table took up half the space inside, with a smaller one in the middle, and cameras, operated by various news organizations of this world stood all around this arrangement.

Seven people sat at the large table, each with their own microphone, and a little name plate in front of them, that, instead of showing the people’s names, revealed the countries they were representing during this interview session, complete with little flags.

United States of America, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada…

Stevyn took note of the names and sat down at the table in the middle of the room. There was an awkward silence, as if everyone present was holding their breath. Maybe they were confused, since, apart from his larger size, he looked just like them. They possibly expected some kind of grey alien. Still, he took the silence as a sign that he should speak first and leaned forward to talk into his microphone.

“Honored representatives; I thank you for the invitation to this meeting. I am Doctor Stevyn Grendel, working at a place called the Interdimensional Research Institute on my home world, Thirram. I represent the institute and my world, with the blessing of our Chief Technocrat Meryl.”

“Your whole world?” one of his hosts inquired, and Stevyn nodded, answering both the spoken question and the unspoken one about his world in general.

“Our world is unified under one government. We eliminated resource scarcity, thanks to the massive excess in electric power created by Hamill-Neumann reactors, allowing us to create, or ‘print’, anything, as long as we possess all the base elements. Elements that are missing can be transmuted from existing ones through our particle accelerators – I believe you have those in your world as well, big and cumbersome as they may be. People don’t work for survival anymore, but for the fulfillment of adding to our world, or our understanding of it.”

He saw the face of one of his hosts darken after he spoke those words. The representative whispered something under his breath about ‘Communism’, if Stevyn interpreted his lip movements correctly. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he had the feeling that he committed some kind of faux pas by mentioning the material reality of his world.

The representative of Japan cleared her throat and spoke up to keep the conversation going – possibly to distract from her colleague’s mutterings.

“From what you already told us when you came and constructed those gates, you are not affiliated with the two… ‘dimensions’ that have drifted close to ours. Why were you getting involved, then? Just out of the goodness of your heart?”

“To be honest, I’m doing it because a friend of mine lives in this world, and I am helping them out,” he replied cautiously, keeping his response neutral to not give any hint about Mana’s identity.

“Does this friend have a name?”

“They have, but I would like for them to remain anonymous. I hope the gathered representatives will respect that wish.”

He saw them exchanging some glances, and for a moment it looked like they wanted to grill him until he spit out the name of his friend in this world, but they dropped the topic instead.

“You mentioned reactors that enable your world’s lifestyle. Would your world be willing to share the knowledge?”

“No. Do not take it personally, but this technology can be incredibly harmful in the wrong hands, and your world is… tumultuous. We are always open to sharing our knowledge to lift other worlds up and enable them to understand this universe a little better, together with us, but we cannot risk someone creating, say, a dimensional bomb with it to wage war.”

“Has your world ever created such a bomb?”

“No. We went through a period of peaceful unification.”

“No one heard of those reactors and said they wanted them for themselves or tried to take them by force?”

“For what reason, when they were going to reap the benefits anyway?”

“Your way of thinking is… utterly alien.”

“We’re getting off track, here,” another representative interrupted the discussion about the reactors, then he looked directly at Stevyn.

“Those gates you built all over the world to facilitate travel between worlds – can they be modified? To only let our citizens back through on our side?”

“What use is a door that remains closed?” Stevyn asked with a raised brow. “And adding a credential system to everything would be time-consuming. I won’t do such a thing,” he added.

“I don’t care! Some people have used the gates to circumvent air travel and tariffs! If more people start misusing these gates then-”

“The gates stay. Anomalies spirit people away on a regular basis, and they are the only way to bring people back without overworking your tireless defenders, the Magical Girls. I’m sure your economies will survive a few dozen people carrying a few packages on foot.”

Another scoff from a few representatives, and Stevyn held back a groan. He knew this was going to be a long and unproductive day.

A TV in the corner of the room was broadcasting the interview of the ‘alien engineer’ who built the gates two months ago. It was heavily edited of course, removing anything that might make the nations represented look unfavorable. Despite the presence of cameras, it was a closed-door business at heart, after all.

Seika turned the TV volume all the way down as she noticed her colleagues getting distracted by it, then she slammed her hands on her desk.

“Alright, everyone, I’ve just come up with a brilliant idea for our booth next Comiket!” she announced into the room – which got the attention of Watanabe himself. He turned her way and fetched a block with a pen, giving her his undivided attention.

“As you all know, the interdimensional incident two months ago inflicted a severe blow to our Comiket industry presence. With all the chaos, the halls were nearly empty, and our promotion went nowhere.”

A few nods in the room showed agreement with her assessment, and Seika moved to a whiteboard, grabbing one of the markers and starting to write on it with big letters, so the whole office could see it.

“Therefore, my suggestion for Summer Comiket…”

She finished scribbling her suggestion, then she turned around, slamming her hand on the whiteboard before she repeated what she wrote out loud.

“We use real elves as cosplayers!”

Murmurs went through the office and people exchanged looks before they nodded in agreement.

“Yeah!”

“I like it!”

“We should do it!”

“Saria should do it!”

“Eh?! N-no! I’m not doing that!”

The one her colleagues mentioned earlier, Saria, was an elf woman, who looked up from her desk with a panicked expression. She wore an earpiece with glowing blue lines, which translated Japanese into elf speech for her, and a matching choker modulated her words from Elvish into Japanese in turn.

If it weren’t for the pointy ears, she’d look like any other tired office lady. Her golden hair was tied into a bun behind her head, she wore a suit with a pencil skirt and tights, and, to top it all off, she even wore half-rim glasses, which were another tool from Prosperity City, helping her with translating Japanese text in front of her eyes into elvish. She was the newest editor working at MagiColle, who applied last month with her experience as an elven scroll keeper. Watanabe hired her out of curiosity how that experience would translate into that of an editor, and, surprisingly, she did really well.

“Come on, didn’t you tell me during our last author meeting that you wanted to go to Comiket one day?”

“As a visitor, Hitoishi! Not as a cosplayer! There is a big difference!”

Seika grinned and put her hands on her hips, looking around the room, then she shook her head.

“Okay, fine! I’m sure we’ll find someone more adventurous if we look for them. Someone out there or in their home world should be interested…”

“Are you certain that you could find us an elf who wants to cosplay one of our fantasy characters? This latest series has a very skimpy costume for the main heroine.”

“Oh, I’m certain, Watanabe. I have my ways,” Seika reassured him with a grin, and he let it be with a nod.

“You’re going to pester Nicola’s servants, aren’t you?” Pallas asked with a little giggle in her mind, and Seika hid a grin.

Oh, do give me a little bit of credit here. I’ll also pester elves in Lilieth’s world.

***

“So, what’s the plan today? Straight home?” Pallas asked as Seika left the office building and walked straight to the train station.

Pretty much. There haven’t been any incidents today, and it’s Bellona’s day to deal with them, anyway.

Seika stepped onto the platform as the train came to a slow stop in the station and entered. She shared space with many people in office attire, like herself, but here and there she could spot pointy ears, wearing the same translation technology as Saira at the office.

Advertisements for these devices were placed on various spots across the city, with the text in Japanese, Elvish and ProCy Creole boasting its instant-translation capabilities with near-zero ‘lost in translation’ incidents. Aimed at those who were spirited away to another world, together with their homes, and who decided to keep living in their accommodations but travel between worlds, or even those who decided to cross over into the other worlds to live and work there.

The first month was, of course, a fight against the current. The Japanese government wasn’t particularly fond of regular immigration already, so making it accept immigration from other worlds entirely felt like a gargantuan task.

However, once the people from Prosperity City came with the technological know-how of the future, and the elves demonstrated their aptitude in a variety of fields, the attitudes quickly changed - with a lot of help from the Celestial Sisters, who ceaselessly campaigned for the acceptance of the visitors. For this they played the fact that their powers came from the High Enchantress to their advantage. The first visas were approved, and then a hundred, then a thousand, and then ten thousand.

Of course, not everything was roses and sunshine; the government was constantly breathing down the necks of these otherworldly immigrants, and not every one of them got a desirable job. The elves were beautiful, so seedy recruiters in Kabukichō tried their best to get their hands on at least a few of them, and Seika noticed that at least one hostess bar added one of the foreign beauties to its lineup and started to advertise that fact thoroughly.

In essence, the world kept turning the way it did before, just that it had more options in doing so, and it took advantage of its people, as it always did. It was sobering.

Seika got off at Shinjuku station and navigated the hallways, where she came across the gates. There were two of them: one leading to Prosperity City, one to Lilieth’s City. Its name was impossible to properly pronounce by Japanese sensibilities, so it got the localized name ‘Bay of Light’ on the sign above its gate.

Some elves and humans walked through the portals, returning to their displaced homes, or even just to visit. Seika even spotted a pointy-eared girl wearing Arisu’s school uniform and vanishing through the portal to the other world.

“Huh…”

“I wonder how old their equivalent to our schoolgirls may be…”

Visitors from Prosperity City were a little harder to spot than the elves, though they still tended to stick out a bit, thanks to their choice in fashion and styling. Seika walked past a woman with a half-shaven head with pink hair, whose jacket depicted scrolling logos on a built-in LED strip.

Supposedly a large chunk of the visitors from the futuristic world got along well with the local subcultures due to their interest in odd fashion. Miori herself appeared interested in trying out their clothes at some point, as she enjoyed the ones Annie lent her while she was in her world.

As Seika reached the platform for the Odawa Line home, she noticed a group of schoolgirls next to her, who were excitedly chatting. They weren’t visitors, though one could be forgiven for thinking that some of them were. Seika saw ears and tails belonging to cats, dogs, even horses, with colorful hair to match. Mutations caused by the sudden bleeding of magic energies into this world, revealing hidden bloodlines connected to otherworldly visitors.

They were standard school uniforms, though the girls with the animal features had modified versions of the regular skirts, with a hole below the waist band that allowed for the new appendage to slip through. Custom tailoring jobs, done by people like Mana Kanno’s mother, and Ayame.

Speaking of Ayame, with the help of an inheritance that Maria Hattori left behind for her, she had acquired Atelier Antoinette and started a project to introduce a clothing line that both people with and without tails could wear, with a fashionable diamond shape in the back of pants and skirts, that could be easily cut out by the customer to create a tail hole. The Celestial Sisters, on the other hand, had now contracted an electronics manufacturer to mass-produce headsets that would fit various animal ears, after they gifted a prototype to Mana last year.

Ayame’s project, aimed to be sold to both mutated and non-mutated people, aimed to reduce the financial burden which the animal features, the tails especially, put on people by making it regular fashion that could be produced at large quantities to drive down the price.

The train arrived, and Seika entered, opting to sit down and grab her phone to check on her messages. Apart from a salacious photo that Ayame sent to get her worked up, there was nothing of note, so she instead messaged Miyu and Momo, picking an encrypted messenger for the occasion.

Seika: How are you two holding up?

Momo: Ughh, Paisen, save me. I’ve been talking to the government, like, every two days now.

Miyu: Some are still trying to get our real identities, and those of our mentors. So, Miori’s and yours. But we are holding strong and won’t give them anything, even if it means hits to our idol activities.

Seika: Hopefully it won’t come to that.

Momo: We ARE now officially recognized Magical Girls, so we should enjoy a little bit of leeway. But you and Miori-paisen be careful, alright?

Seika: Of course.

She let out a deep sigh and stared at the cityscape outside. White marble towers and otherwise unremarkable buildings with holographic projectors stood between the usual concrete and glass buildings, creating a sharp contrast.

I don’t recognize the city I spent most of my life in anymore.

She had mixed feelings about the whole state of affairs. Things got much more chaotic, and required semi-regular Magical Girl intervention, mostly when an elf thought that it would be a smart idea to bring a mythical creature into an overstimulating human city full of people and blinking lights, or when the children with new animal features discovered that they could wield magic.

Scotus sent more Shadows than ever into their world as well, though Seika couldn’t figure out what their purpose was just yet. They dissolved after being defeated, or self-destructed when captured, preventing them from obtaining a sample which Janus could use to crack Nox’ shroud over Scotus’ home domain.

Seika exhaled noisily and closed her eyes. She grew a little frustrated with the uncertain stalemate they had entered with the hostile Deogemma. From an assassination attempt on Seika and Miori directly, to traveling back in time to prevent their victory over Lethe, to attempting to annihilate their world altogether. They kept raising the stakes, and Seika didn’t like to imagine where it could lead next, nor did she want to find out.

Still, she and the other adult Magical Girls had their hands full with the recent incursions, so she didn’t have the luxury of thinking about a course of action to confront Scotus just yet. Jove, Minerva’s father himself, was just as helpless when it came to breaking into the world his uncle was hiding out in.

Seika shook her head and looked at her phone again. A news alert demanded her attention.

‘US Offer to Send Sanctioned Magical Girl to Assist with Incursions Pending Government’s Approval’ the headline read, and Seika furrowed her brow. Despite the increased number of attacks, she didn’t feel like there was a need for reinforcements. But before she could click on the alert to read the full article, the train’s PA system ripped her out of her thoughts.

“Next stop: Yoyogi-Uehara.”

Seika hastily got out of her seat and walked over to the door, then she left the train car and the station, before approaching her apartment building.

Mercifully enough, their own home was spared by the interdimensional anomaly, but a building on their street had been replaced with an elven goldsmith’s workshop. As she walked past, she could see the elderly elf through the window, presenting a strangely shimmering gemstone from his own world to what appeared to be an engaged couple, who were utterly enchanted by the item’s colors.

They are getting married with an elven ring. How special.

“And you got married in the capital of the ‘Roman’ gods. Don’t get too wistful now, Seika,” Pallas spoke in her mind, and Seika could only react with a slightly awkward grin.

It sadly doesn’t count in our world. Least of all the part about me having four wives. I’d have to move to an entirely different part of the world for that, and those cultures that allow a person to marry multiple people don’t typically allow that marriage to be between women.

“Ever the pessimist. The world is changing, Seika. It is only a matter of time until other worlds get dragged into this tangle, and at some point, your human leaders might have to rethink their stances on a lot of things.”

I don’t know if I’m supposed to be excited or terrified by that, to be honest.

Seika had reached her apartment building and ascended the stairs, inserting her key into the lock and opening the door. She smiled as she was greeted by a familiar face, who just left the bathroom, wrapped in only a towel.

“Well, you’re enjoying your day off, aren’t you?” Seika asked Minerva, who smiled and quickly approached her for a tight hug – then a deep kiss.

This was another part of the world that changed. Now that their reality was awash with magical energies, their Deogemma partners could materialize and walk around for a limited amount of time before they had to return to being sentient gemstones and recharge. It wasn’t quite the same quality of magical air as in Capitolium yet, but slowly and surely, the world was getting there.

“Oh, I love taking hot baths. I used to just live vicariously through you, but now? I don’t think I’d be able to go without one.”

“At least she can’t go on without a shower, the way she made us sweat,” a teasing voice came from the direction of the bedroom. Ayame waved towards Seika, with a smile on her face as she walked out in her underwear and got comfortable on the couch.

“Well, I’m aware. You sent me a picture of you two,” Seika responded with a dry chuckle.

“And we’re lucky that Arisu is out playing with the witch girls, or she could have… heard things, the way dear Minerva here wanted to demonstrate her stamina and kept going...”

Minerva responded to the accusation with a dumb grin, like a teenage boy who was both proud of and embarrassed by his prowess.

She emerged as a fully grown woman, but sometimes she acts like she’s truly seventeen by our standards.

“She may have gotten some of that from growing up alongside you. A growth period in Capitolium usually leads newly born Deogemma to be more… stoic.”

Aren’t you about the same as her? You were quite a tease, and excused your constant wandering around half naked with your need to be able to dive into water at a moment’s notice…

“L-let’s not talk about me!”

Seika showed a dumb grin to match Minerva’s, then she walked over to the couch and sat down, leaning her head against Ayame’s shoulder and closing her eyes as she felt Minerva embrace her from behind.

Whatever the strange new normal in this world was, the women she loved were her anchor and her strength to face it.

“Let go of me!”

The little bundle that Bellona held slightly above the ground was flailing her limbs, trying to hit the Magical Girl who just picked her up by her collar like a stray cat. The Magical Girl noticed a magical disturbance nearby, and surely enough, there was trouble in a convenience store, though she would describe what she saw as hijinks than actual trouble.

The walls and shelves were covered in luminous pastel colors, with an angry-looking part-timer who was covered in the very same paint and tapped her foot on the floor to contain her rage.

“So… what happened?” Bellona asked, lifting the flailing bundle further up to inspect her.

She was a young girl, possibly only ten years old judging by her lack of verticality. She was the mutated sort of child, with large mouse ears sprouting from her head and a tail from her behind. Her hair was a pure white color despite her young age, and she was dressed like a magician, top hat and all.

“This girl… walked up and said she wanted to show me a magic trick,” the part-timer pushed out between clenched teeth, which shone brilliantly white as they peeked out from the blue color on her face.

“And I did! Ta-dah!” The girl declared with a semblance of pride in her voice which quickly made way for a very mouse-like squeak as the Magical Girl shook her a little.

“That magic trick involved all of the colors here, I guess?”

“Oh yes! She shoved a deck of cards in my face and told me to draw one card.”

“And she drew the Fool! Which usually means innocence and new beginnings, but also, I enchanted it with a color bomb!”

Bellona let out a long groan. She was a walking weapon arsenal, not someone suited to chastising naughty children with superpowers. And the revelation that there would now be a fair number of them, thanks to the flood of magic, didn’t fill her with confidence, either.

“I’ll get her out of your face.”

“And what about the colors?!”

“I don’t really have magic to get rid of that.”

“I do!” the girl spoke and grinned as Bellona lifted her up and looked her in the eyes once she was at the correct height.

“Do you really, now?” Bellona asked skeptically, and the girl beamed her a smile, pushing a deck of cards in her face.

“All you have to do is draw the right car- agh!” the girl squeaked again as Bellona dropped her and caught her, carrying her under her armpit. The girl kicked her legs, but with her arms pinned against her body, she couldn’t engage in any more tomfoolery with her cards.

“Well, that’s enough out of you. I’m sorry for the mess. I’ll ask around if someone I know can clean it up,” she spoke apologetically to the part-timer, who let out a long sigh and made a dismissive gesture.

“Oh, don’t bother. I’ll just get a mop and… oh!”

Just as she was about to move, the colors disappeared, dissipating and flying away as glowing motes of magic. The woman, now thankfully no longer blue, let out a relieved sigh and bowed to Bellona.

“Get her back to her parents or something. Thank you for coming here to help, anyway.”

***

The girl was very tight-lipped about her address, her parents’ names, and her own name, whether Bellona bribed or chastised her. She sat on a bench, showing her captor her best pouting face as the Magical Girl looked at her with crossed arms. Neither of them enjoyed this stalemate, so Bellona sighed and simply sat down on the bench next to the girl.

“Why are you playing pranks like that, hm?”

“Well, I enchanted my cards with magic. So, of course, I want to go and try them out!” the girl announced with a proud little huff.

“Enchanted? Did you learn magic from someone? Like an elf, maybe?”

“Oh, no, no! I taught myself!” the girl announced with a grin.

“Yourself? This world only just got magic at a large scale and you just…?”

The girl nodded and hopped off her bench.

“Every card in this deck is enchanted by me! All 78 cards have different effects! And I won’t know which effect it is until I draw a card! Pretty fun, hm?”

“…for a young child that is certainly impressive,” Bellona mused, and now she could see the girl’s face darken before she jumped up and down, pointing at Bellona.

“Don’t treat me like a little kid! I’m seventeen!” she declared, and for a moment, Bellona was utterly lost for words.

She mentally projected Arisu next to the girl to compare. Her daughter was half a head taller.

“…come again?” she spoke, exasperated, and the girl only got redder.

“Don’t make fun of me! I’m a refined young lady, a magic user, and a magician! You’ll see one day!” she shouted, and before Bellona could even react, she pulled out her deck to draw a card.

Bellona couldn’t see which Arcana she drew, but the girl vanished in a large burst of smoke which made Bellona’s eyes water and her lungs burn, leaving her coughing and hacking. She quickly looked around, trying to sense the strange girl nearby, but this wasn’t a mere smoke bomb; the girl had vanished magically, likely far away.

“That could have gone better,” Bellona proper commented in her mind, and the Magical Girl grumbled, launching herself off the ground to fly home.

“Don’t even start… let’s just go home.”

Something told her that this was just the beginning of how bizarre things could be in their new world.