Glamorously dressed

by moonfiretiarasoulaction

When Akko and her friends meet the veterans of the war against the life fibers a new threat develops in an unexpected way. This crossover started with the humble aim to see the characters from these two franchises interact, but a year later I developed a long-term storyline in which ambitions and ideals clash to pave a new path for humanity. Go ahead! Future! (Will update monthly)

19. Chapter 19

Intro: Kalafina - Ashita no Keshiki

Lyrics: /lyrics/ashita-no-keshiki/

watch?v=uVjP0ipkqQ4

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Author's note:

I'm leaving my readers with an extra-long chapter to enjoy, because I have a promise to keep.
I have a beachside Bloom Into You romance to write, and so, I will have to take a break from Glamorously Dressed while I do that.

And that right when I leave you with such a cliffhanger! I am truly sorry, but I will do my best to write a suitably exciting twentieth chapter by the end of September.
Secrets from the future and the past will be revealed in the next chapters of Glamorously Dressed as we slowly approach the epic finale.

Take care. I hope every one of you and your loved ones will remain healthy and keep their jobs.

---

Walking through the half-open metal door Hedda wonders why there isn't a guard in her father's laboratory. Considering the severity with which he had always forbidden her and her sisters from entering you would think his security was tighter.

There's a strange smell in the large hall.

The slender girl with the long straight blonde hair looks around at the desks around her. Some have all kinds of tubes and reservoirs on them. Others have computers on them.
Hedda spots a screensaver with a picture of a rabbit on it and laughs, remembering how her father always calls the triplet his little bunnies.

As she wanders further into the hall she realizes there is a wide basin in the back. Coming closer it seems to the girl this is where the strange smell is coming from.

Far in the back of the laboratory, behind the large basin, she sees a row of ten man-sized reservoirs made of metal and glass containing frozen long red tubes. There is a large yellow claw attached to the right wall of the laboratory that seems intended to handle the reservoirs.

Hedda approaches the railing around the basin and looks down. The basin is filled with a bright blue liquid. Very pretty.
The girl wants to take a closer look. Peering around she sees that there are metal stairs toward the yellow claw and walks over there.

Hedda descends the stairwell staring at the strange blue liquid below. If Pernille and Tuva could see this…
A strange sensation makes her lift her head and look at the red tubes in the reservoirs up against the wall. They seem as pretty as the liquid. Such strange tubular things.

The slender girl with the long blonde hair sits on the metal platform over the basin on her knees, staring down at the beautiful liquid, and decides to go and grab a glass tube from one of the desks to fetch some of the liquid for Pernille and Tuva.

Then, Hedda loses her balance and with a frightful shock, she lands in the acid basin, screaming and moving her arms as she sinks deeper and burns to her death.

---

Pernille Haugen sat up with beating heart and sweat dripping down her face as ever when she dreamed about the death of her sister.
Putting her hands to her face the girl started to weep uncontrollably.

"Pernille? Try to breathe slowly," Zala Furlan who sat on the bed to the left of hers tried to say in a soothing tone as she rushed to the hyperventilating girl and held her hand. "We are safe here in the common dormitory of Dinas Affaraon. The nine new witches are here too. Akko has been very kind to us. Remember that little show she put on to make us laugh?"

"I know it happened a long time ago… but it still hurts…" The slender Norwegian whined, sobbing in her friend's arms.

Pernille had told the chubby Slovenian witch some things about her sisters and how one of them had died in an accident when she was a child. The sobbing Norwegian had been plagued horribly by nightmares in the past days and Zala wished there was something she could do or that the Witches Council would do something about their situation so that they might go home.

"Is it okay if I help?"

The still distraught Pernille and her chubby Slovenian friend with the long fluffy silver hair looked up into the eyes of a gently smiling short girl with two long blonde ringleted pigtails.

"If you don't mind I have a spell to ease your worries," Blair Aleramici smiled.

Pernille nodded eagerly and closed her eyes while swallowing her tears before Blair gracefully held the palms of her hands over the girl's head. As a bright light enveloped her Pernille calmed down and sensed how her respiratory canals were cleaned.

"Thank you," She smiled at Zala Furlan and Blair who were joined by Rajani Chandra and Norah Maherzi. "I had another nightmare. I am sorry to bother you."

"None of you girls is a bother," Norah said. "We are very sorry your first day at Luna Nova turned out like this."

"Yes," The Italian friend of the Moroccan witch who wore a purple headscarf over her black curls agreed. "We are just happy you're not so frightened anymore."

Rajani pensively observed Pernille while Zala continued to hold the girl's hand.

"You have been suffering a lot from nightmares these past three nights," She said. "Understandable considering what you've been going through. I'm very good at oneiromancy and dream-healing. Would you mind if I tried to help you?"

"Ah," Pernille grimaced nervously with her eyes on the Indian witch and glanced at her Slovenian friend. "Can you keep the nightmares from repeating?"

"I should be able to manage that much," Rajani said with the fires of enthusiasm burning in her eyes. "I might even be able to help you to resolve the emotional problems at the source of the nightmares. But you'll have to be able to honestly describe what you remember from the dream."

Pernille blinked and looked down at the blue bed sheets covering her legs.

"You don't have to do that. Alright, Pernille?" Zala Furlan gently spoke. "She wants to give you more permanent help, but Blair can ease your mind if you get another nightmare."

"Yes, but…" The slender Norwegian with the long blonde hair started hesitatingly.

Then she looked up into Rajani's smile.

"You can trust me," The Indian winked.

"Alright then," Pernille tremblingly smiled back.

I

"I see that some of the girls are already sleeping," Joanna Pingo Azuaje-Fidalgo said as she stood in the form of Anelise Van Dijck wearing a light-blue SDD uniform against the light-grey wall along the breadth of the large dormitory hall next to the door to the hallway talking to Anne Finnelan and Karabo Mahlangu.

The obscured hall was filled with four rows of twenty-five beds. The beds in which the teachers and DOP officers slept were spread out in between them, with Karabo Mahlangu, Anne Finnelan, and Yuan Long San sleeping closest to the door. Not just to watch over the entrance, but because the first two might be called upon at any moment to further discuss the matter they had alerted the members of the Witches' Council of.

The corridors in between the beds were lighted only to those walking through them to go to the communal bathrooms and lavatory on the opposite side of the hallway or to go and have a whispered conversation with a fellow restless spirit in the middle of the night.

To convenience those poor witches and the late sleepers, spells had been cast over the beds creating soundproofed pockets around them up to a certain volume which also provided the same local light effect that provided safe passage to those with restless blathers.

"My apologies again for the inconvenience of having to wait in the make-shift arrangements of Griffin Tower," Joanna bowed with a smile. "I only arrived at the Dinas Affaraon dimension a few hours later than you did and providing your sleeping arrangements is my first job. I will be at your disposal day and night for whatever you need."

"Do not worry, Miss Van Dijck," Anne Finnelan imperiously told the girl. "We are well aware that the reason our girls had to wait so long was more because of the usual extreme security measures of Dinas Affaraon than anything else."

"You are too kind, Ms. Finnelan."

"Not at all," Karabo smiled kindly at the girl. "You have done an amazing job. Thank you for your hard work in what must have been a very stressful first assignment for you. Particularly because of our peculiar request."

"Oh, no. In fact, I must be grateful to you. It would have been a lot more work to prepare rooms for all of you. And the trolls I work with have been very kind and helpful."

Joanna stepped aside as Mary entered the room through the door to her left and exchanged a polite nod with the girl who had saved her from certain death the previous summer.

"Hello Mary," Karabo greeted with a concerned frown. "How come you left the hall unguarded?"

"I only left for a few minutes to visit the lavatory," The bluette replied politely.

"Don't worry, Ms. Mahlangu. As we agreed before there are several SDD guards stationed in the hallway and the facilities. Miss Twycross was under constant surveillance," Joanna smiled.

"I am aware of that. But I want one of my DOP officers to accompany everyone who leaves the hall.
There are too few of us to guard you all. That is why I asked you girls to properly inform us whenever you left," Karabo sternly addressed Mary while the girl saw Amanda O'Neill, Sola Hofdisdottir, Elfriede Förster, and Emma Thomas approach their teacher and Chief-commissioner Karabo, wearing the same white nightgowns Joanna had made available to all of them.

"You pulled the same stunt at Luna Nova, didn't you?" Emma interrupted. "How did you get it into your head to endanger yourself and the rest of us by running off without letting anyone know? Don't color up like that! You deserve every bit of the hiding you're getting. You should pay more attention to your personal safety at times like this."

"I will. I apologize for being so thoughtless, Chief-commissioner Karabo," Joanna saw an unusually submissive Mary bow. "I didn't mean to make your job harder than it already is."

"I don't want you to feel bad about this, Miss Twycross. But please help us protect you better," Karabo said in a kinder tone, wanting to compensate for Emma's harshness.

"Do the two of you know each other, Miss Van Dijck? You called Mary by her surname earlier?"

Mary looked blankly at her soldier at the question Anne Finnelan asked Joanna.

"Oh no," The girl laughed. "As per the Dinas Affaraon security protocols I memorized all of your names, faces, and magical energy patterns."

"Of course," The stern Irishwoman nodded. "You are commendable for the effort you have been making for us on your first days on the job, young Miss. I think we will all rest safely knowing that you watch over us."

Joanna smiled genuinely at the compliment, feeling for the first time that Mary had been right about the importance of the responsibility she had pushed onto the Brazilian Lycée Des Atlantides Student, while the bluette herself smiled happily at the skill displayed by the girl she chose to prevent Anelise Van Dijck from infiltrating Dinas Affaraon.

"You girls wanted to speak to me?" Karabo asked the group standing around her and Anne Finnelan. "I don't want to make you feel bad, but if it's about my decision not to allow anyone to contact their loved ones I am afraid I have to stand by it for now. There is too great a security risk involved in contacting anyone outside of Dinas Affaraon until we know more about what is going on…"

With regret in her heart Mary saw Joanna grimace and leave the hall. She was aware that Joanna realized she might be endangering her family if she told them she was still alive, but that didn't make what she put her soldiers through any easier to bear.

Since Emma was here she decided to do something she had longed to do for a long time in order to selfishly make herself feel better and quietly left the group.

"We fully understand why you made the decision and respect your judgment, Chief-commissioner," Emma respectfully addressed the tall and athletically built woman with the black-and-white cornrows buns at the back of her head. "And we are aware that the anxiety many of us feel because we shouldn't try to contact our loved ones right now is on your mind. What we came to discuss with you might at least partly alleviate those concerns."

"We've been thinking about how worried a lot of us have been feeling," Amanda added. "Not just the first-year girls. A lot of the second and third-years have been feeling anxious too. Since we have nothing to do while the members of the Witches Council are debating what you told them, all many of us are able to do is worry.
So we thought the three of us and a few other girls who are most proficient in the matter could employ our time usefully to teach the others some basic light-saber fencing and offensive and protective magic spells during the coming days."

Karabo and Anne exchanged a look and frowned.

"Leaving alone teaching your fellow students offensive spells, which you should only possess a basis in for self-defensive purposes and should not be something a witch spends much study time on, I have my doubts whether a flashy sport like light-saber fencing could be considered useful employment of your time, Miss O'Neil and Miss Thomas," Anne Finnelan sternly addressed her students. "In principle, I would prefer you to use your time in seclusion here to study."

Emma's lips curled up in a smile.

"I, on my part, have my doubts whether being taught light-saber fencing might not bring the first-year students a false sense of security through acquiring a skill that might prove useless if we are endangered like we were at Luna Nova again. I don't want you to make anyone behave recklessly because they think they can stand a chance against a life fiber-enhanced human using the spells you taught them."

"I don't think anyone here apart from the nine new witches and a few others feel confident enough to think they should try and fight a life fiber-enhanced human if the occasion arises," Elfriede replied with a confident smile. "And we are well aware that we shouldn't put such foolish thoughts into their heads. On the contrary, you can count on us to repeatedly make it clear to them that they should take no risks even with the skills we would be teaching them and that they should trust in the ability of you, your officers and the nine new witches to keep us all safe."

"Who would be the girls teaching offensive magic?" Anne Finnelan inquired with a raised eyebrow.

"Emma, Amanda, and I were planning to teach light-saber fencing," Elfriede declared enthusiastically. "Diana was doubtful about the project, but if we receive your blessing I am sure she will join us. Chloe, Molly, Akko, Mary, and Lotte want to teach offensive and defensive magic. I think we can get Hannah and Barbara to join in too."

Karabo turned to Professor Finnelan with a kernel of doubt still in her heart, but at the sight of the woman's smile she dropped any reservations she might have had.

"Alright," She sighed. "You have my approval."

"But I will make a few changes," Professor Finnelan interjected as her students high-fived cheerfully. "I agree that the other girls will benefit if their minds and limbs are occupied by instruction, so I will oversee the light-saber class which will be taught by Emma, Elfriede, and Diana. Professor Nelson will oversee a flight class with Amanda, Akko, Lotte, and Hannah as her assistants. Professor Lukic will oversee the offensive magic class which Chloe, Molly, Mary, and Barbara will teach."

"Wait a minute?" A shocked Amanda frowned. "I'm supposed to teach broom flying?"

"I am aware you would rather teach light-saber fencing, Miss O'Neil, but…"

"No. It's not that… It's just that I thought I would be better suited to…"

"A teacher of broom flight should be someone who is both a capable flyer, a person with superior knowledge about the principles of flight, and a person who has gained the maturity needed to be responsible for the safety of others. Do you doubt Professor Nelson's judgment, Miss O'Neil?" Anne Finnelan smiled kindly.

"N… No, Professor Finnelan. Thank you," Amanda smiled back while an equally joyous Sola clutched her girlfriend's hand.

"Come! Let's tell Wangari, Kimberly, and Joanna!" The short Islandic witch exclaimed while pulling the taller redhead along.

"Miss Thomas," Anne Finnelan detained the New Zealander with the black bob who was about to follow her friends.

"Yes, Professor Finnelan?" The girl respectfully nodded before she curiously frowned at the tall brunette who came closer and carefully inspected her face.

"I have been pleasantly surprised and I have been painfully betrayed by girls who made waves at the school I love," Anne Finnelan laid her heart bare. "If you are going to make waves, all I ask is that you do so in a straightforward way."

Emma's bright crimson eyes openly returned the woman's frank look.

"I recently caused heaps of pain to two people who far from deserved the mare I put them through. It was a failure of mine that weighs deeply on my mind.
I am not a person who enjoys failure, but when I do experience the feeling I devote myself to keep it from happening again. You can trust me when I say that I will not cause the suffering of others through selfish motives."

I

Akko noticed Diana's face appearing through the magical screen in between their beds and slowly turned her glum face toward the platinum-blonde witch.

"Are you still ruminating about Filiz?" The Brit asked in a kindly voice, tilting her face at her reclined friend. "I'm sorry about what happened. I know you take it hard when someone you like betrays your trust. Anyone would, of course. But with a heart as open as yours…"

She really hated to see Akko like this again. Fidgeting with her hands behind her back Diana wished she could feel free to embrace her dear friend.

Emma could talk. Even if she had any hope that Akko's heart was not engaged by another person, how could she bring up her feelings for the brunette in this nightmarish situation?

"Do you think she was telling the truth?" Akko asked as she stared above her. "About Nela and those other girls still being alive."

Diana walked into the space around the Japanese witch's bed and sat down beside her.

"I want to believe her too. We all wanted to believe in Filiz and her bright energy that seemed so similar to the energy with which you changed the world.
Trust is based on a combination of hope and previously established facts. It's understandable to want to believe what she told you about Nela and her other victims, but after what we discovered about Filiz I am afraid the established facts should temper our hope of that being true."

Akko turned her eyes up at her friend. They seemed duller than usual to the uninitiated. But Diana knew that Akko's light burned as bright as ever behind that film. The light of hope ever radiates.

"Besides," She continued. "There is nothing we can do for them if they are alive."

Akko grabbed the blue covers of her bed in her right hand and grimaced.

"I should have been this concerned about them when they were alive," The brunette forced through her teeth and cut Diana's heart.

"Don't let her make you think like that!" Diana whispered hoarsely. "Don't allow her to make you think like that. Nobody was able to see through her lies. Who could have suspected that anyone we knew could be that evil?"

"You can say that now," Akko sissed through her tears. "But Nela warned me. I should have seen that there was more to their supposed friendly rivalry…"

"The entire magical community was focused on finding the person who killed our friends over the summer, and Filiz was able to elude them all until now. Nobody expected you to watch over anyone," Diana asserted fiercely. "None of those girls were your responsibility. Neither was Nela. Neither was Filiz."

Akko dried her eyes and grimaced at her friend.

"From what you told me it is clear that Filiz and Nela had secrets between them in which they didn't allow anyone proper insight. How could you have been aware of anything if both of them purposefully lied to you?

I know they made you believe they were your devoted fans, but the truth is that they had no intention to be as devoted to you as they pretended they were.
Each of them had her own agenda. So there is no reason for you to feel responsible for how they turned out! There is a limit to how much you can be expected to give of yourself, Akko! You can't hold yourself responsible for what happens to people who don't seek your trust!"

"I'm sorry," Akko whispered as she brought a hand to Diana's eyes and wiped the tears from them. "My affectionate friend, Diana. I didn't mean to make you cry."

Diana hadn't been aware that she was weeping. To avoid embarrassment she sat up and wiped her eyes with the sleeves of her white nightgown.

"Thank you for trying to make me feel better, Diana," She heard Akko smile behind her.

"I don't mind if I have to spill a few tears to make you feel better," She muttered.

"Huh?"

"I thought I'd find the two of you in one bed," Emma interrupted as she easily sat down on the other side of Akko's bed and showed a glaring Diana a cheeky wink.

"I can see you are both packing a sad, so I'll start by cheering you up with some good news," The confident blackette grinned. "I took your friends Elfriede and Amanda and her girlfriend to have a talk with Chief-commissioner Karabo and Professor Finnelan, trusting them to sell our proposal.
They did a really good job of it, bringing up all the advantages of having us all occupied and arguing the objections the two of them came up with.
As a result, our little meeting was a big success. So Professor Finnelan decided she wants me and Diana teaching light-saber fencing with her and Akko to teach a broom flying class with Amanda and Professor Nelson. What do you think about that, eh?"

"Broom flying?" Akko frowned as Diana turned around. "You didn't say anything about that."

"Chur. That was Professor Finnelan's idea. You're gonna have to take it up with her tomorrow if you don't like it. But I bet you're happy to be doing something useful tomorrow instead of lying around moping over what can't be changed, aren't you?"

"Yes!" A reanimated Akko fist-pumped eagerly. "I bet I can get some laughs out of those scared first-year students if I tell them how I learned to fly."

"How about you, Diana?" Emma asked the Brit who was instantly cheered up, seeing the girl she loved smile again. "Having us both teach the light-saber fencing class was Professor Finnelan's idea. But we can ask her to change that if you want?"

"No, thank you," Diana replied. "I look forward to teaching our juniors together."

"Thank you. That means a lot to me. I figured the two of you would be happy with our success," Emma said with a pleased smile while taking both girl's hands in hers.

"I had a few words with Professor Finnelan afterward. She asked me not to make any waves, seeming to recognize me as the instigator of the plan.

She was very open about the heartache Filiz's betrayal is causing her. So I told her sincerely that I did something recently of which I'm not proud of at all, but that I wouldn't act like a dag anymore.
Finally, I confided in her that I was still going to have to do something that might cause a bit of an uproar, even though I'm pretty sure she'll be right."

Akko blinked curiously at her new friend who brought her face closer to the Japanese witch's while Diana suspiciously frowned at the blackette's gleeful smile.

"This girl fought me tooth and nail when Me and Andrew came over for dinner because she thinks you are in love with him even though she's madly in love with you herself," The New Zealander whispered in Akko's ear loud enough for a violently blushing Diana to hear.

"Good luck, you two," Emma winked as she joined Diana and Akko's hands and walked off.

It took a few moments for either witch to recover from the shock.

"A… Andrew?!" A bright red Akko stammered at last.

"I don't know what she is talking about!" Diana replied while covering her face with her hands.

"Why would I be in love with Andrew?"

Hearing the honest shock in her friend's voice Diana gingerly peered between her fingers at a clearly astounded Akko.

"You are constantly talking over the phone," The platinum-blonde witch quietly explained. "And you get along so well. He called you to talk about your engagement during summer…"

All at once, Diana put two and two together.

"He called you to talk about meeting Emma?"

Akko nodded.

"So you are not in love with Andrew?"

"We just get along," Akko muttered. "He's a fun guy when he is being honest with himself."

Diana could only stare at her friend.

"Is it true, what Emma said?" Akko, still pale, asked quietly and saw her friend turn her beet-red face to the side.

Then the brunette started to weep like a fountain.

"I'm so sorry, Diana! You love me so much and all I do is assault you when I'm drunk like a coward! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you!"

"So you do remember?" A shocked Diana asked.

"I'm so sorry for lying!" Akko nodded as she continued to weep.

"Then… Does that mean…?"

Instantly Akko stopped crying and returned her friend's stare with a beating heart.

"I'm sorry I never told you," She sighed. "I wanted to become a council member before I confessed my feelings to you."

"A council member?" Diana frowned in utter confusion.

"I'm just an ordinary girl after all," Akko blushed awkwardly while she rubbed the back of her head. "You come from a great noble family. Even if you do return my love for you, there's no way you can tell your family we want to spend the rest of our lives together… our something…" She muttered quietly.

"Akko…"

The brunette ventured to look up into her friend's eyes with a sheepish grin.

"Akko, you are the one who made me brave enough to stand up to my aunt and nieces for the first time in my life… You are a source of courage for girls and witches all over the world. Time magazine named you person of the year and world leaders made appointments with Headmistress Holbrooke to talk to you…"

Akko swallowed as she saw Diana grimace and her eyes fill up.

"Akko… You idiot!"

Then she hurried to embrace her weeping friend and returned her passionate kiss, falling underneath her as they lost their balance and fell on her bed before they rolled onto their sides.

"I'm really sorry for causing you pain," Akko cutely apologized as they fondled each other's cheek."

"I can't blame you," Diana sighed. "I suppose I haven't acted very intelligently in this matter myself. Barbara and Hannah kept pushing me to talk to you about my feelings for you, but I didn't want to…"

The Brit opened her eyes and found her lover's crimson eyes gazing at her with more radiance than she ever observed in them before.

"A… Akko.." The enchanted witch muttered before she was hugged something fierce and everyone in the dormitory heard the victory call:

"Yaaaay! Diana loves me!"

I

"Well of course she does, you moron," Hannah England muttered with a roll of her eyes.

"Hahaha!" It seems like they finally figured it out," Andrew chuckled as he sat on a wooden stool at the end of one of the magically lighted corridors between the rows of beds in a light-blue pajama. Mary sat in front of him, beaming up at the young man with the neatly brushed dark-brown hair because of small victories and guilty pleasures with deep emotional importance.

"Let's hope so," Blair, whom Mary had towed along for moral support, giggled while she sat next to her friend.

To the left of them, Hannah sat on her boyfriend Frank's lap on a similar wooden stool.

"So then we arrived in Cirencester where we had made reservations at the River Bells lodge," Andrew continued the story he had been telling

"Here you are?" Emma said as she conjured up a stool for her own use and sat to Andrew's left. "This setup looks like storytime before bed."

"They asked me to tell them about how I met you," Andrew laughed. "And after that, they wanted to know all about what we did during spring break."

"You girls are very curious about other people's affairs, eh?" His fiancee asked in a suspicious voice as she raised her eyebrow at a blushing but thoroughly happy Mary and Blair.

"Of course we would be!" The latter exclaimed. "If you catch a celebrity bachelor like Andrew Hanbridge you can't expect to keep things like that a secret."

"I see," Emma smirked. "So rather than storytime, this is a Royalty Life special edition?"

"That's right," Mary grinned from ear to ear. "The two of you are a celebrity couple in the magical community now. We expect lots of interviews."

Emma frowned at the peculiar and seemingly flaky girl and returned her smile.

"Alright then, Andy," She said while draping her arm around the shoulders of her fiance. "Let's oblige them."

"As I was saying: We arrived at the River Bells lodge, a beautiful Tudor-era inn with rustic irregular brick walls, flagstone flooring, and exposed wooden beams."

"The River Bells lodge was heavenly. I loved waking up in your arms lying in that luxurious bed with goose down bedding when the light of the sun came in through the window," Emma reminisced while leaning her head against Andrew's.

"We had a great time during our stay," The young man with the short wavy dark-brown hair smiled. "We had so many plans, but we ended up spending half of the time in the lodge. Remember how we sat together for hours in the window seat with a glass of cider, talking and looking down at the people passing by through the cobblestoned street below?"

An ecstatic Blair held Mary's left hand as the blissful bluette gulped down the live accounts of her future parents' love.

"And in the evenings you would play on the Steinway grand piano they had in the bar," Emma chuckled. "He had heaps of fun with that piano. I sometimes wondered whether he remembered I was there."

"I wasn't that bad?" Andrew pleaded. "It's just that he was tuned so perfectly, and the acoustics in that bar was so heavenly."

"I can picture Andrew losing track of who's with him when he's sitting in front of a keyboard," Frank laughed with Hannah.

"Hard out, Frank. He had the time of his life on that piano, but the songs he played were mean as. I would sit near him, reading a book while people came up to him with requests. Other lodgers thought we were on the pub's payroll," Emma said to the amusement of all. "And when the band scheduled to perform on Saturday evening heard about him they asked him to join them."

"I might have overdone it a little," Andrew laughed as he rubbed the back of his head in shame.

"But I love hearing you play,' Emma smiled and kissed her fiance.

"I hope you didn't stay in that lodge the entire week?" Hannah protested. "Didn't you visit Bath? Or Stratford-upon-Avon?"

"Yeah, nah. In the end, we only did stupid stuff that felt like fun to us. Like we raced each other up and down a few hills for an afternoon because of a challenge after some mutual bragging."

"Who won that challenge?" Frank teased.

"I did!" "I did!" Both of his friends said in unison before bursting out in laughter.

When they calmed down again Emma was puzzled by the expression in Mary's dark-blue eyes which gazed at her and Andrew with so much delight and intensity.

The bluette had never seen her future mother so happy and lively. And not even Akko, who had first sparked the fire in Andrew to be more honest with himself had such an effect on the handsome boy with the bright green eyes in front of her.

"... and parked the car under some trees after we took pictures of us posing beside it with the pond in the background.
Then Emma tried to push me in, but she forgot about the protection spell she cast over me at the end of the party at Soho Basin over the summer and fell in the pond herself while I was teleported a few meters back," Andrew recounted to general merriment.

She wouldn't allow Filiz to destroy this happiness a second time.

Not even Meifa herself would stop her from saving the future.

---

Ifunanya Obesere skirted the row of pine trees around the glade in Muromtzevo park where Dacio Sousa and his men had been busy competing against each other in practice fencing matches the entire morning.

Across the surface of the glade about a hundred-and-fifty male REX soldiers were busy perfecting their aim and their evasive movements.

Their Venezuelan Captain, as usual, was exerting himself with more fervor than anyone.

"That's enough everyone!" Dacio yelled at last. "We will now take an hour break for lunch! At one o'clock we will start aerial evasion training!"

Ifunanya waited until nearly all of the men in the dark-blue uniforms had left the clearing which Dacio had asked Valentina's witches to cover in a concrete flooring on their way to the mess hall in the castle and walked over to Dacio and his shadow Olek Timoshenko who were still talking to three of their soldiers.

"Your advice really improved my lunge. Thank you, Captain. I will work hard to improve even more before the coming battle," Jokubas Endrasius nodded a respectful greeting to the man with the shoulder-length black hair and thin mustache who had introduced him into REX and to the Nigerian-born right-hand woman of their leader Valentina Zhigunaova before he and his friends joined the other REX soldiers on their way to the castle.

"What a pleasure to see you here, Ifunanya!" Dacio joyfully declared. "But you shouldn't have gone through the trouble. We were just on our way to the castle. Come and join us for lunch if you please."

"No need, Dacio," He saw the tall woman with the long black cornrows grin. "Olga made me a few gadgets that will allow us to have a comfortable open-air lunch right here."

From a plastic bag in her hand Ifunanya produced several colored little cubes. After rhythmically tapping them with her finger they became a wooden dining table, three chairs, plates, glasses, and cutlery.

"If you will sit down I had the cooks prepare us turkey sandwiches with baked sweet potato fries and estragon mayonnaise," The woman in the dark-blue uniform smirked.

"We are being spoiled, Olek! To not only have our lunch brought to us but furniture too!"

"Get over yourself, Sousa. I brought all this so I could have a comfortable meal with you while we talk," Ifunanya deadpanned to the amusement of a quietly grinning Olek.

He and Dacio sought each other's eyes and chuckled while the stout Ukranian with the spiky silver hair sat down.

"You're not the only ones I have to check up on," Their female friend sighed as she tapped on a few other cubes that changed into plastic boxes containing the aforementioned dishes and placed them on the table. "You know how Valentina gets about information and organization."

"Hahaha! Do I ever," Dacio laughed as he lifted the purple lid of a translucent plastic box containing the sweet potato fries and used two spoons to serve his tablemates. "She was a Devil when we had class assignments in middle school. But I have to hand it to her, we always had full marks."

The son of a car manufacturer sat down while Ifunanya took two sandwiches out of another container for herself and passed the translucent box to Olek.

"Yeah… Valentina can be intense and demanding. But that's how we like her," He continued while squirting some mayonnaise onto his plate.

"Credit where it's due: We all have more to thank Valentina for than we are aware of, like you always say, Dacio," Olek added.

"I'll let her know you said that, you sycophants," Ifunanya grinned as she cut up her sandwich. "On to business: How was practice today?"

"Smooth," Olek replied after sipping his glass of sparkling water. "We perfected the skills we learned through our own little version of shared consciousness downloading.
A few small things that could be better here and there, but everyone is battle-ready."

"How are things at the other training camps?" Dacio asked.

"Ms. Charpentier has successfully been reassembled," Ifunanya sighed. "Overall the mission her group was sent on ended in failure, but if they hadn't met with an unexpected force majeure they would have succeeded.
They brought back valuable experience and data on our mysterious enemy.

Phirun Suan's team also ended up facing an unexpected defeat yesterday after having achieved total victory initially.
Lacyn Niyazova's team was forced into a defensive position but achieved victory in the end.
The situation of the teams we sent to America can go either way, but they will not join us. The other teams have been performing well during training."

Dacio frowned and swallowed a few fries.

"What were the causes of those unexpected defeats?" He asked curiously.

"While our enemies are equal to our own troops when it comes to ability, they have two "independent agents" on their side who pose a threat of a superior order."

Ifunanya emptied her glass of sparkling water and filled it again from a magical carafe.

"There will be a special briefing about these two witches Friday evening," She continued. "But we have people specifically to deal with them.
In any case, with the trump card we will be using during the battle we shouldn't have any trouble with them if they show up.

Speaking of which… Valentina changed the training schedule. Tomorrow all of our members will make obligatory use of the very suspicious sudden worldwide holiday and sleep in. The afternoon will be entirely devoted to the special training."

"Good call, as expected," Dacio nodded. "We have to get this completely right before the battle. Our success depends upon it in large measure."

"I had some exercises I wanted to try out," Olek chimed in while pricking his fork into a piece of tomato. "So that works out perfectly."

"And lastly I want to remind you again to strictly monitor your men: No access to any media. No contact at all with anyone who is not a REX member from Friday afternoon until we go to battle," Their Nigerian-born companion with the long black cornrows concluded.

"Understood," Dacio nodded. 'But I still don't understand why we need to be so strict on this measure."

"The higher officers will learn the reason during the special briefing tomorrow evening at seven o'clock," Olek heard Ifunanya say before she sipped her glass. "That is all."

"Good," His superior officer smiled while chewing a piece of a turkey sandwich. "Thank you for informing us. I'm curious as to what we will be told tomorrow."

"This mayonnaise is delicious by the way," Olek smiled. "Did you make it yourself?"

Ifunanya's fork floated in the air right before her lips as the woman raised a confounded eyebrow at the younger man.

---

It wasn't hard to see that Satsuki had finally formulated a response to the confusion and dire situation her group was in.
Soroi expected no less from the woman who at the age of six started to plot against the worldwide alien invasion her mother spearheaded at the time.

The faithful old butler poured the tea his mistress had requested him to make into the white porcelain cup that stood on the table to her left.

All of Satsuki's friends sat before her in the employee canteen like before.
Uzu wore a green T-shirt with a beige shawl and dark-green jeans. To his left, Aikuro sat in his white lab coat over black trousers.
Shiro sat, similarly dressed, to his colleague's left.
Next to the short man with the blonde ponytail sat Kaneo Takarada in black-and-white striped trousers and a matching vest over a light-brown shirt.
Behind the entrepreneur sat Shizuku Fujimoto, the stout cheerful witch with the long red braided hair who was wearing a knee-length sleeveless brown summer dress.
Nonon sat to the young woman's right in a light-blue short skirt and matching summer vest over a pink top. Next to her sat Mako in a short skirt and summer vest in an orange and dark-blue tartan over a black T-shirt with her fiance Ira in a spotless white tuxedo over a blue shirt.

Where before they had sat in a circle, however, now they all sat facing Satsuki while she was clothed in the bright white colors of her Kamui Yuuki, whose head she wore as a helmet.

Here sat not the Queen who had ruled Honnoji Academy, but the grim warrior who from utter defeat fought with all in her power to lead her sister and friends to save the earth from the life fibers and succeeded.

"I thank you all for coming here to attend this meeting," Satsuki began. "The information I am going to share with you and its repercussions will be hard on all of us, but after long deliberation, I have come to decide that the path I am going to take is the only one open to us."

Soroi frowned as he took his place to the left of his mistress. Since she hadn't completed her transition to the fufian race yet he was unable to sense what she was thinking and the finality of her words puzzled him.

What he could sense was Shizuku's unease. The witch had been feeling rather useless with Aikuro busy helping Shiro in the underground laboratory and spent most of her time maintaining the Lightning Strike Robotics mech suits.
She had been pressing Soroi and Mako to confess their nature to their friends to make things easier on all of them, but Soroi and Mako had agreed with Kinue that it would be best to let Satsuki and the others figure things out by themselves.

"... After Uzu and I returned from Yamazaki Tower with the blood and DNA samples we collected from Berren Osdemir and other confirmed fufians Shiro and Aikuro were able to confirm without a doubt that all of us without exception now belong to this hybrid race Kinue Kinagase, Hoka Inumuta, and his girlfriend Sucy Manbavaran have been promoting all over the world."

Ira, Nonon, Kaneo, and Uzu either sought each other's eyes or turned their own eyes down as confirmation of their new opponent's claims hit them while the woman who sat before them in a white vest, shirt, knee-length skirt over white stockings, and white cloak with a light-brown spotted pattern calmly drank her tea, carefully observing everyone's reactions.

"So... that Kinue told the truth…" Uzu started with increasing agitation. "If so, when are Ryuko and Rei going to recover? Have you discovered anything that might help them?"

"We are working on finding a solution for their situation," Aikuro gently replied as the green-haired man turned to him. "But with this, we should feel more secure in Kinue and Hoka's claims that both of our friends are alive and without pain."

"As far as we can trust anything Hoka will ever tell us!" Ira protested while Mako anxiously tried to calm him down by holding his hand. "What is the word of a supposed friend who turned us all into life fiber hybrids behind our backs worth?!"

"I believe Hoka made very difficult choices because he was convinced of their necessity," Satsuki interrupted.

"Lady Satsuki…!" Ira started with a pained grimace as he stood towering over his friends.

"I am aware how you feel, my dear friend," The regal woman before him spoke. "But I trust Hoka. He did what he did because he is convinced he is granting a wonderful gift to the world the likes of which that world would not have accepted if he had presented it to us openly.

I am aware that Hoka has always been somewhat aloof, but I am certain that he always saw us and will always see us as his friends."

"Still, what he did is hard to digest," Nonon frowned bitterly. "He may think he is granting the world a gift in turning us all into fufians, but what he and Kinue are doing is no better than what Raygo did."

"I agree. But we have all committed crimes and kept information from those dear to us for what we considered the greater good. I have no doubt of Hoka's intentions. What I am nervous about are Kinue's intentions."

Satsuki took another sip from her tea and put the cup down on the small table next to her.

"When we talked on the phone Hoka made one intentional revelation and one unintentional one to me," She continued as Ira sat down again. "I warn you that both will be a lot more shocking than what I have told you thus far.

Firstly, Hoka told me that Kinue has overwhelming powers. Among other things he is convinced that she is able to monitor what every person in the world does and thinks," The woman in the Yuuki Kamui told her distraught audience. "And he confided in me that she is using this power to monitor me specifically."

"The implications of this are disastrous for us if we choose to oppose Kinue's efforts," Aikuro spoke up. "And if it is true there is no way of knowing whether she is only monitoring you or when she is not doing so."

"I agree," Satsuki nodded. "If this is true there is nothing we can plan that she will not be aware of. If Kinue can spy on any of us at will we have no hope of using stealth or secrecy as a weapon if we decide to oppose her. Which brings me to what Hoka unintentionally revealed to me."

"We are all friends here," Satsuki said as she looked everyone in the room in the eyes consecutively. "Though some of us might have a harder time overcoming the pain of having been lied to than others, you have my word that I take your defense upon me. I do not blame you for having felt forced to use subterfuge in order to aid a cause you feel passionate about, but I think it is time now for complete honesty."

#What do we do now?# Mako panicked as everyone looked around in confusion at Satsuki's words.

#You two have to come clean first!# Shizuku transmitted to her and Soroi. #It will look terrible if I step forward first!#

#You have to step forward first, Miss Mankanshoku,# Mitsuzo Soroi advised Mako. #And you have to do so right now.#

"I am aware that one or more of us have been watching over us from close by for Kinue or Hoka. I would have arranged for a similar situation if I had been in Hoka's position at least," Satsuki continued.

"I'm sorry for lying to you, Ira-honey. We agreed it would be too overwhelming for all of you to reveal ourselves before you learned all that you know now by yourselves," Mako quietly said as she got up from her seat.

"M… Mako?" The pale giant asked in disbelief.

"I know this comes as a shock, Ira," Satsuki said in an attempt to comfort her friend. "But try to remember how we lied to our parents and our friends when we fought the invasion organized by my mother. There should be no doubt in your heart of Mako's love for you."

"Mako?" Ira repeated as he looked into the moist eyes of his sad lover.

"I'm sorry, Ira… I didn't want to hurt you, but it was better to wait until you discovered everything by yourselves."

"Mako... You... You... Were you involved in taking Satsuki prisoner?" The large tanned blonde man asked as he grimaced to keep back his tears.

"Not personally. But I don't think that matters, does it? I was aware of the plan and didn't tell you what was going on. I know you can't look at that as anything but a betrayal of one of your oldest friends… Kinue needed Satsuki's blood to mature her body."

"And yet: It is my place to judge her for that, Mr. Gamagoori! Not yours!" Satsuki spoke up true to her word. "At no time was I endangered or harmed during my incarceration. In fact, I was aware that I was given special consideration the entire time."

"I know that!" Ira roared as he got up. "But…"

"Do you hate me now?" Mako muttered as she held onto her lover's pinky.

"No! Of course not!" Ira violently declared. "But…"

Mako slowly looked up at her gentle giant and saw the truth of his words in his eyes.

"You were part of this plot… Just like Hoka you were part of this and didn't confide in the rest of us."

"You wouldn't have understood," Mako pleaded.

"Please don't think it was easy on her!" Shizuku protested as she got up from her seat. "She often wanted to tell you the truth, but everyone agreed with Kinue that you would have panicked if you discovered everything all at once.".

"Everyone?" Satsuki frowned.

"There are accounts on social media that serve to guide people who inhaled Perfect Fusion tea and notice that they are not the same anymore," Shizuku told her. "It's how I learned all that was going on and how the magical community is affected by this. It is there that we were all informed that there are people who for some reason aren't able to fully become fufian yet and that Kinue and her people are working on fixing this problem. It is where we debated the question of how to deal with those people and eventually it was agreed to pretend like nothing had changed in order not to upset you and others like you."

"I would like to know how exactly the magical community is affected," Satsuki said with an arch look. "I believe all the witches in Japan have become fufian. Is that right?"

Shizuku looked honestly into the blackette's eyes and answered to the best of her ability.

"Pretty much all of them, yes."

"Has Kinue been making an effort to ensure all witches join the fufian race?"

"Not especially no. The Perfect Fusion tea company has been targeting the world on a continent by continent basis.
They started with Asia. Then, when the Root Of Origin investments in Africa started they began working hard on distributing the tea there.
Fufian promotion in Europe was halted because of Eri's actions. But after the defeat of the Chaos Gods, action was taken to spread Perfect Fusion tea throughout Europe at the same time as production and marketing started in North and South America. And now the company is starting fufian promotion in Oceania."

"I see," Satsuki pondered. "So there are probably still human witches in Europe and the Americas just like there are still ordinary humans?"

"Oh yes!" Shizuku exclaimed. "The Witches Council itself resides in a very reclusive community. As part of its security protocols, they only consume what they produce for themselves. Developments in food production are adopted after a thorough investigation and only when they are deemed a necessary improvement.
I don't know how Kinue plans to go about having them join the fufian race, but apart from initially targeting a specific few witches to help her with the development of the Omnimagi Project and to teach her about magic I am not aware Kinue wants to prioritize turning witches into fufians above ordinary people."

"And how where those witches targeted?" Shiro, who had turned around to address Shizuku, inquired.

"I am afraid I was the one who sought out Crois Meridies and turned her and others we both sought out into fufian witches in order for them to help us carry out Ms. Kinagase's vision," Mitsuzõ Soroi apologetically said as he stepped forward from behind his mistress and stood in front of her. "I am also the person who is more than anyone apart from her, Mr. Inumuta, and Miss Manbavaran responsible for the fufian revolution.
And although it hurt me to betray you, I am the one who willingly arranged for your incarceration and oversaw how you were treated during your imprisonment."

Shiro turned around in shock at his uncle's statement while Satsuki regarded her butler with an ice-cold calm.

"And are the three of you the only fully-fledged fufians among us?" She simply demanded.

"Yes, Lady Satsuki. You have my word. I also swear to you that since Ms. Kinagase revealed herself to you neither I, Miss Mankanshoku, nor Ms. Fujimoto have been in contact with her or Mr. Inumuta. Although I have a clone of mine who performed the same duties to her as I have been performing for you but is now a guest of Ms. Kinue at an apartment she kindly rents for him in Nova Pangea.

I humbly apologize for what I have done to you, My Lady Satsuki," Mitsuzo Soroi said as his friends saw him prostrate himself before his mistress. "But I remain convinced that all I did and participated in was necessary and beneficial to our people."

"I know you do, Mr. Soroi. Please rise," Satsuki said after an emotional sigh.

The man in the spotless black tuxedo slowly got up from his dogeza but kept his head bowed toward his young mistress.

"We have taken note of this peculiar worldwide holiday and this scheduled broadcast of the Omnimagi Project preceded by a speech from the Emperor which has been announced at 4 o'clock Friday night and which everybody is being urged to watch live if they are able to. In your position, you should be able to tell me more about what we will witness Friday night?"

"I am afraid I am only able to provide you with superficial information, Lady Satsuki," Soroi declared. "Only Ms. Kinagase and the witches who work with her on the project know what exactly the Omnimagi Project entails. My clone is able to look out over the Omnimagi Stadium where Ms. Kinagase will present the project to the world and I am aware that she will reveal the fufian revolution to the rest of the world during the presentation… "

"She will create a worldwide panic!" Nonon exclaimed. "If she reveals the presence of a hybrid race among humanity there's no telling what will happen! You have to advise against it, Mr. Soroi!"

Soroi slowly turned toward the pinkette and looked her in the eyes.

"This is why the presentation will be introduced by every nation's head of government. People holding local positions of authority have also been instructed to proactively calm people down.

But most of all we foresee that when they realize how many of us there already are, how becoming fufian might ameliorate a person's circumstances, and that everyone can become fufian, the remaining humans in the world will eagerly take action to join us."

"I wouldn't be so sure the rest of the world will be getting in line to join your club of mushroom people," Nonon sneered bitterly.

"Perhaps not. But the remainder will come to see the benefits in time," Shizuku replied. "You can't fully appreciate what is happening to the world right now until you experience what being fufian is like.
I hope Kinue's team can find a solution to your situation soon, so you can find out why we did what we have done.
Miss Jakuzure! Mr. Gamagoori! The fufian revolution is a wonderful thing! What Mr. Soroi and Mr. Inumuta helped make possible is a wonderful thing, Lady Satsuki!"

"My contribution in this was small and misguided initially," Soroi humbly stated. "Without Ms. Kinagase's vision, none of this would have been possible."

"And your clone worked for Kinue in the capacity of a butler, Soroi?" Satsuki inquired.

Her butler turned to her and looked her in the eyes.

"Yes, Lady Satsuki. That is correct."

"You render no other service to her?"

"No."

"You don't seriously believe that you can serve two masters? Sooner or later you will end up disappointing the one by pleasing the other."

"That is what the recently ratified international labor laws regulating the legal status of fufian clones say," Soroi stated while looking his mistress frankly in the eyes. "But I desire to both of you wherever I can."

Satsuki recognized the resolve in the old man's eyes and sighed.

"I was expecting you to say so," She replied as she got up from her seat.

"Then these are the actions we will take in the face of our current situation: From now on, Mr. Soroi, Miss Mankanshoku, Ms. Fujimoto and I will occupy the offices and the smaller kitchen at the back of the building secluded from the rest of you while the rest of you continue to take care of the Kamui biotopes and Rei and my sister!"

"What?!" Ira protested. "But I need to talk things over with my Mako!"

"Miss Mankanshoku is aware that the love you feel for her is too strong to be defeated by the pain you now feel, Ira.
We cannot afford to dwell on these matters!" Satsuki declared. "We need to act strategically and therefore I need to keep the people who would currently serve me best as weapons against Kinue close to me while I keep myself apart from all of you whom she is not monitoring as far as we are aware."

"This is a desperate and possibly futile strategy, Lady Satsuki," Aikuro declared.

"I am aware of that, Mr. Mikisugi. But it is the only strategy we can employ for now.
Let us watch the broadcast of the Omnimagi Project on Friday night and afterward we will decide on our next course of action. Meanwhile, I trust you and Shiro will continue working on a solution to have us all complete our transition to fufians and awake our two friends."

"We will devote all of our considerable intelligence and talent to the task, Satsuki," Shiro nodded firmly.

"Thank you, old friend," Satsuki smiled before she resolutely turned around.

"The three of you: Please, follow me!"

Unsure of how to react, Uzu, Kaneo, Nonon, and Ira saw Mako and Shizuku hesitatingly leave their side and follow Soroi who walked in his mistress's footsteps.
They heard no more of them but a concerned inquiry from Shizuku as their friends left the employee cafeteria together.

"Hey! The two of us can still leave the complex for work and to see our family, can't we?"

---

Turning a corner and walking into an almost deserted hallway of the school Heather sees her friend Elaine struggle against their schoolmate Karolina's firm embrace.

"Stop holding on to me!" The girl weakly whines. "I need to go and join Heather for our private practice!"

Elaine is a beautiful slender girl with a gentle face and flowing golden-blonde hair that reaches to just below her shoulders She always reminds Heather of the pictures of her mother and the few memories she retains of her from the time before she was destroyed by her father's new wife, Mia Accola.
The idea that this resemblance might be prophetic never entered Heather's mind.

Elaine is constantly trying to catch up to the other REX members in Hexentanzplatz, but since Heather started tutoring her the girl has been improving.

"Alright. I'll stop holding on to you," Karolina says with a cute smile on her beautiful face. The tall elegant girl with the shoulder-length wavy dark-blue hair waits until Elaine is exerting as much strength against her as the girl's tender frame can muster. Then, like a catapult, she releases her shocked victim.

With the fear of death coursing through her body - her light-blonde hair undulating as she falls down - Elaine stares wide-eyed at the amused smile of her murderer before her body hits the hard hallway floor.

Heather immediately runs towards her friend, alarmed at the fact that Elaine isn't trying to get up and isn't moving at all.

"Elaine! Elaine! Wake up!" The girl with the long light-orange hair screams as she lifts her friend's limp upper body up in her arms.

With a snicker Karolina turns and walks away while Heather casts a spell that tells her the heartbreaking news:

"She's dead!" The orangette weeps. "You killed her!"

Karolina looks over her shoulders and smiles.

"It was an accident," The unperturbed Macedonian coldly replies. "She fell."

Enraged, Heather leaves Elaine and runs after her murderer.

"I'll make you pay!" The bereaved young witch shouts as she launches a fire spell at the girl with the shoulder-length dark-blue hair in front of her.

Karolina quickly annuls the attack and casts a Rain Of Daggers spell at Heather which throws her opponent against the wall of the hallway that runs perpendicular to the one they are in and cuts her all over.

Defeated and realizing how naive she was to think she could avenge her friend Heather starts to weep as she falls onto her knees.

"REX has no use for weaklings," Karolina chuckles. "Elaine was an embarrassment. She would have been better off not trying to reach for what she was incapable of."

Then the Macedonian walks out of the quiet hallway while Heather crawls toward Elaine's body and hugs it with tears rolling down her cheeks.
When she later goes to the Headmistress with her accusation against Karolina she is convinced to drop her claims for the good of REX. Elain's death is indeed treated as an accident and life goes on in Hexentanzplatz.

That is the moment the much-suffering slender orangette vows to revenge her mother, aunt, and friend.

---

Heather stood with a big grin on her face next to her half-sister Ami Accola in the roundabout in front of Hexentanzplatz's main building where their mother, father, oldest half-sister, oldest half-brother, and his fiance arrived in a large Mercedes-Benz.

"I see you're still having fun because of that mortifying embarrassment you caused me in class," The girl with the black bob next to her seethed. "Just you wait, Heather Powell. I'll get you back for all the humiliation you caused me."

Heather glanced at Ami as the car that brought their family to Hexentanzplatz to watch the last mock battle training before the important assignment most of the girls would leave for soon came to a standstill at about two meters from them.

Heather's mother and father had used to have their residence in their hometown of Seattle. The mansion in Germany was only a holiday home. But after her father, Henry Miller, remarried Mia Accola the house in Thale became their permanent home, with Henry only going back and forth to the US for business purposes.

"If you hadn't tried to change the content of my magic philosophy book just when Professor Meyer was asking us to read aloud one by one you wouldn't have been embarrassed, Ami," Heather giggled.

The driver's door opened and her eyes immediately landed on her stepmother's hard dark-brown eyes.

Mia Accola was a handsome athletic woman with a wavy black bob who wore a drop-shaped purple pendant from each ear and a knee-length purple dress with a matching bolero.

Although her looks could have her pass for a young woman in her late twenties, the head of the Accola household invariably had a hard face when she wasn't smiling.
As such, her beauty was more of an intimidating than an endearing kind.

Such a hard look was now directed at Heather. Gradually it relaxed into a smile that seemed like a leer before it grew warmer.

"Ami! Heather! I am so glad to see you two again! They had us traveling the east coast forever these past weeks. It feels so good to be home again."

"You exaggerate, my dear," The girls' father said as he stepped out of the passenger's side in a light-grey tuxedo over a white shirt. "But I agree it is good to see you two again. I hope to see how much you improved during the past months."

Their brother Miles and his fiance, Heike Weber, got out of the car from the left side back door wearing a light-green tuxedo and a long green sleeveless dress respectively.

Mia's favorite daughter, the stunning Ally, stepped out from the right side door wearing a knee-length white dress and a short purple frilled bolero with a pearl necklace.

Behind them, Heather's uncle Harry and his wife Alice got out of a dark-brown BMW while a valet in a blue tuxedo received the keys from Mia and drove off.

"Uncle Harry! Aunt Alice!" Heather called out as she walked up to the man with the blonde hair and mustache in the light-grey tuxedo and his pale wife with the pretty yellow bob and the blue eyes. "I'm so glad you could come after all."

"I found a way to free myself up. I felt we had to be here to honor how hard you girls worked for REX," Her uncle said.

Heather didn't like how pale and subdued her aunt looked. She saw Mia walk toward the woman and link arms with her as she led her toward the wide-open wooden double doors of Hexentanzplatz's main building.

"Come along, Alice," The blackette urged her sister-in-law while she smiled cruelly at Heather. "I want to see Professor Meyer and ask her how Heather is doing with the laws of conjugal freedom."

Heather tried to restrain herself but couldn't help bursting with laughter.

"The laws of conjurational freedom, mother," Ami sighed.

"I know what I meant," Mia protested with a flustered face, mortified by Heather's laughter. "I misspoke. That's all."

Heather breathed out as Mia, Alice, and Ami followed the rest of their family and looked at the beautiful dresses her stepmother and her daughters were wearing.

'All of those dresses were bought with my mother's money,' The pretty slender orangette fumed. 'Money Mia stole when she murdered my mother and married her husband. Just you wait, Mia… I'll get it all back somehow.'

---

"That was so funny when she realized what you did," Alice laughs as she sits in her white dress on the beige sofa in the living room of the apartment she and her husband rent in his brother's mansion. "I've been having so much fun since you returned from school for your summer vacation, Heather. It's good to see there is someone who tries to stand up to Mia."

"She's probably explaining everything to her boss right now since she ran off in such a hurry," Heather says as she sits opposite her aunt in a light-blue dress with a pattern of little white flowers. "But I agree Mia should face some opposition. I hope we can become allies, aunt Alice. I tried to find support with Heike, but she is terrified of Mia."

"I am on your side," Alice smiles."

"Good. With your support and that of Mrs. Achziger, we'll see to it that Mia and her daughters can't do everything they want anymore in this house. In time Heike will join us, I'm sure.

Now I have to go to Anke Borkenhagen. She's been waiting for me in the reception room for over ten minutes."

"Oh! That's true! You should hurry. I'm sorry I kept you here," Alice exclaims as her niece gets out of the sofa and leaves the room.

The woman with the pretty yellow bob looks at the door and grins. Feeling like a laugh she gets up and, in turn, leaves the room.

---

"Yes sir. I will get in touch with them right away and work everything out," Mia Accola excitedly tells the national director of Blue Skies. "I was just about to call them."

Behind her she hears the door of her study open as Alice Miller enters.

"What happened was caused by me being tired, but I promise you can count on me. I will not let such an important client go so easily."

"It seems Heather has caused you some serious problems. Hmm?" Alice smiles as her sister-in-law finishes her telephone conversation.

Mia turns around in the leather chair at her desk and looks her gloating visitor in the eyes.

"Do you think I am worried about that little girl? I defeated her mother and I will crush her as well. Give it time," She glares.

"Still, it must be embarrassing to almost lose an important client because you wanted to destroy Heather's certificate of her second year at Hexentanzplatz and she swapped it with the client contract. It's not a big deal, but as your first lobbying assignment at Blue Skies it does make you look a teensy bit unprofessional, " Alice giggles.

Mia just shows her a hard stare in response.

"If you had your laugh you can leave. I have work to do if I want to show the national director that I will serve REX well as a corporate lobbyist."

The hateful stare doesn't leave the face of the woman with the wavy black bob as Alice closes the door behind herself.

"Don't worry, Heather Powell. I easily triumphed over that weak mother of yours and I massacred your naive aunt when she thought she could take me on and take revenge. I will make short work of you too," She repeats.

---

"You seem to be friends with all the important families in Thale, Heather," Anke Borkenhagen laughs before she takes a sip of her saftschorle.

The girls sit in a spacious living room with beige walls, a crystal chandelier above them, and bookcases and a multimedia set behind the salmon-pink sofa they shared.

"It's easy to become friends with a lot of people if the daughter of Hexentanzplatz's headmistress is your adoring girlfriend who can't say no to you and can get teaching positions for members of every good-natured magical family whose acquaintance you make," A radiantly smiling Heather tells her orange-haired friend in the light-brown trousers and black top.
"But you exaggerate. I am only friends with four families who are of importance in Thale. Your own being one of them."

"Christina Schulze does spoil you. She became a DOP Detective Inspector recently, didn't she?"

"Yes she did," Heather smiles. "She looks so cool in her uniform. I would get my smartphone to show you pictures, but I already made you wait so long."

"oh? I don't mind," Anke replies. "I was doing some plies and cambrés while you were gone. I'd love to see Christina in her uniform."

"Alright then," Heather says, returning her friend's smile as she leaves her seat and walks to the white-painted double door next to the window over the front garden. "I'll be right back."

As the door closes Anke leaves the sofa and walks up to the window where she stands in first position. With a fluid motion she raises her right arm above her face.

Then she realizes the door is open and sees an eight-year-old girl with short black pigtails look up at her.

"Oh, hello," The girl with the long straight orange hair greets her visitor. "You must be Ella. I am Anke Borkenhagen. I'm a friend of your sister, Heather."

"Are you a ballerina? That is so cool!" The girl exclaims. "I didn't know you could do exercises without a bar."

"For some exercises like the cambré you can support yourself on a window sill," Anke explains.

"Really? You gotta teach me!" Ella says while she grips Anke by her wrists and shakes her about.

"Ow! I'm sorry but I haven't got time to properly teach you right now. Ow!" The gentle orange-haired teen panics as she hits her head against the wall through Ella's violence. "Please let me go! You are really hurting me!"

"What nonsense!" Ella laughs, beating the older girl's upper body with her fists. "Come on! Teach me!"

"Ow. Please stop…" Anke begs while she tries to protect her body with her arms but finds herself overwhelmed by the assault of her out-of-control black-haired fan.

Just as her friend falls onto the floor and is about to be beaten unconscious by her eight-year-old sister Heather enters the room and pulls Ella away.

"Ella, what are you doing?!" The girl in the light-blue dress yells as she pulls Anke up in her arms. "Are you alright, Anke? I'm so sorry this happened."

"It's alright," Anke whispers. "Your little sister is a bit wild, that's all."

"Your wrists are horribly bruised!" Heather says, gently holding one of her friend's hands as Anke tries to stand without support. "Ella, you are terrible! Apologize to my friend!"

"Why should I?" The eight-year-old in the white blouse and red trousers defiantly replies with a mean grin. "She didn't want to teach me ballet."

Defeated, Heather uses a magic spell to heal Anke's bruises. But every time they disappear they reappear right after.

"What is going on here?" The orangette demands in frustration as her friend winces every time the bruises return.

Ella's laughter makes Heather look up and find that the girl's sister Lia is standing next to her.

"You did this!" Heather yells and transfers the bruises to the villainess with the black bob with a spell that fixes them for the duration of the day.

"Ow. You stupid bitch!" Lia spits as she grabs Heather's shoulders and pushes her against the wall. "Two can play that game."

At once, an ugly bruise appears on Heather's neck

"Now heal my wrists!"

"You're the one that's stupid, Lia," Her half-sister smiles as she slaps the blackette's wrist.

"Ow!" Lia winces while letting go of Heather.

"This isn't over," The beautiful girl with the black bob threatens, pulling Ella along with her. "I'll get you for this, Heather. Don't think I won't."

"Are you alright now?" The orangette asks as she helps her friend back to the sofa.

"I am. Thank you. But now I'm worried about You! You never told me you live here with such horrible people! Look at that bruise on your throat!"

The two girls sit on the sofa again and Heather takes her smartphone out of her pocket.

"Don't worry about me. That wound will be gone tomorrow. It's true that my stepmother and sisters are horrible to me, but I have friends in this house too. And I will be at Hexentanzplatz again in little over a month.

Now let's forget about this and watch the pictures."

Heather thought it best not to tell her friend about the time Lia tried to stab her to death in the kitchen while Heather knew their father was about to enter and was able to stop herself just in time before she was caught in the act.

Anke shows her friend a concerned look.

"It's really fine," Heather says. "I promise."

"It's a good thing your girlfriend is a DOP officer," Anke sighs.

"Isn't it?" Heather giggles. "If she hadn't confessed to me and made it public knowledge that we are dating I would have been torn apart by this cruel family when I came back here two weeks ago. I have so much to thank Christina for. Now feast your eyes on my cool girlfriend in her new uniform."

---

"You should drink your tonic, Alice," Mia smiled as everyone took their seats in the pearl-white plastic bleachers around the arena built inside the magiconstruct room erected especially for the mock battles in Hexentanzplatz's main courtyard.

"Oh yes," Her tremulous sister-in-law muttered. "Thank you for reminding me, Mia."

"You don't have to thank me. That's what sisters are for, aren't they?"

Heather watched her pale yellow-haired aunt cringe at Mia's laughter and take a small bottle from her leather handbag from which she poured herself a small measure she drank with visible effort.

"What tonic is that, aunt?"

"Oh? It's a tonic to improve blood flow during the pregnancy," Mia answered. "Your poor mother used to take it."

'Don't think you are a match for me, you little canary,' The woman with the wavy black bob thought to herself as she grinned at her suddenly shocked-looking slender stepdaughter with the long straight light-orange hair. 'I devoured your mother and aunt. You won't fare any better.'

"If that's what you are worried about I'm sure Professor Vincke has a spell that can help you," Heather hurriedly said as she hailed the woman in question who was ascending the stairs at that moment.

She wished Alice wasn't so opposed to using the controlled method for becoming fufian. It made her completely vulnerable to Mia. The girl could see that her stepmother had acquired some sort of power over the woman with the cute yellow bob. Alice had been afraid of Mia before Heather returned from her second year at Hexentanzplatz with the resolve to take revenge for her mother and aunt, but she quickly took heart from her niece's courage. Now, however, Alice behaved more submissively and jittery towards Mia than ever.

Thale and the surrounding communities were heavily infiltrated and dominated by REX. Many of the REX members who hadn't been training for combat during the past year purposely avoided the products Perfect Fusion had been marketing so aggressively since the defeat of the Chaos Gods. Mia was far from the only witch in REX who was still human.

The lobby-group Blue Skies which she worked for was in large measure responsible for the aggressive recruitment of city council members, small business owners, and company personnel on the part of REX in Europe, and many REX members were employed in it and other official functions that increased its influence.

"Professor Sandra!" Heather called out as Professor Vincke came closer in her orange teacher's tunic with light-green laced cuffs and collar. "Can you help us with a spell to improve blood flow during…?"

"Look at you!" The stout sixty-two-year-old woman who wore her hat neatly over her shoulder-length blonde hair scolded. "You aren't even wearing your uniform yet when the mock battles are about to start in fifteen minutes! That and that disrespectful tone are what keep you from improving in my class, Miss Powell!"

Heather noticed the glance Professor Vincke and Mia exchanged and understood right away where her stepmother must have gotten the poison from this time.
Ami was always the woman's favorite pupil.
No matter. This meant she had the perfect solution to save Alice's baby and create conflict between the two allies.

"I apologize, Professor Vincke. I will go to my room and change right away," The beautiful orangette politely spoke with an arch smile.

---

"You look so delicious in that frilled white blouse and dark-orange short skirt," Christina Schulze grinned as she pulled her girlfriend up on the bed with her.

The brunette in the light-blue Department of Order and Protection uniform had been waiting in Heather's room for the girl to come and change into her uniform. She had enjoyed the striptease and dress up of her girlfriend.

"What would you have said if Nicole or Ingrid had come in while I wasn't back yet?" Heather smiled while Christina kissed her legs and then her arms and neck.

"Routine inspection," Her girlfriend said in between kisses.

"Hey, thank you for all you do for me," Heather whispered while Christina leaned over her and kissed her on the lips. "And thank you for pulling strings to get me out of the coming battle."

"That might have been primarily out of self-interest. I want to keep you close to me.
The higher officers at REX are awfully tight-lipped about their intentions. They pretend that you are going on a quick mission of conquest, but realistically your schoolmates will be gone for quite a while."

"You think so?" Heather frowned.

"In fact, I suspect we'll all be moving house soon," The brunette with the short wavy hair above her grinned. "Speaking of which, when are you moving in with me?"

"Are you bringing that up again?"

Christina chuckled at the peevish sigh of her blushing girlfriend.

"I understand why you want to stay in that house, but instead of living in the past you would be much happier as my beautiful and pampered stay-at-home wife," She teased. "A DOP officer's salary is nothing to sneeze at."

Heather looked away and grabbed her smartphone.

She opened her picture album and pulled out a picture of her mother and her sitting in the park.

Her mother was pregnant with her unborn sister at that time.

She was wearing a very light-yellow dress with a flower pattern, but somehow all the flowers were drooping and hung on withered stems. One-year-old Heather was sitting close by in light-blue shorts and a yellow blouse and was trying to catch a butterfly, but her mother didn't look like she partook in her daughter's merriment at all.
Her blood-drained face hung from her slender neck and the once beautiful golden-blonde hair that now sloppily covered the woman's eyes was pale and faded, curling slightly because of how dry it was.

Mia Accola had already established herself as Henry Miller's mistress and had completely supplanted Heather's mother at the time of the picture.
The black-haired news reporter had taken residence in her love rival's ancestral home and made it her own. Though Heather's aunt who also lived in the family's European home kept urging her sister to fight back, the young woman was already dead inside. Mia's poison only made physical what her art had already accomplished psychologically.

"I have to take revenge," Heather sadly stated. "My mother was too weak to fight Mia and my aunt didn't fare any better than she did. I have to take revenge for what Mia did to them and their unborn children."

---

Heather walked hurriedly through the wainscotted hallway of the building that housed the dorm rooms at Hexentanzplatz after Christina let go of her.
Her mock battle would begin in twenty minutes, but she wanted to watch a few of the other battles some of her friends were in before she had to fight.

As she descended the wooden spiral staircase to the ground floor housed inside one of the two towers that looked out over the car lot she heard a familiar voice from below.

"Yes, Sir. Blue Skies is a grass-roots organization which aims to promote a long term profitable synergetic relationship between SMEs, local councils, and communities.
We organize a variety of workshops for employees and our members…"

Mia was having a telephone interview on the fourth-floor balcony. This was a wonderful coincidence, Heather thought as she hid behind the large wooden door between the fourth-floor landing and the outdoor balcony. Because it was time for the little note she had slipped into the pocket of Professor Vincke's tunic earlier to take effect.

Sure enough, she saw the last human teacher at Hexentanzplatz and the only one who wasn't a REX member ascend the stairs to the fourth floor and walk onto the balcony.
After a minute Mia concluded her telephone conversation and Heather spied how Professor Vincke confronted the handsome woman with the wavy black bob.

"So, what did you want to ask me about the poison?" The woman in the orange tunic inquired of her fellow conspirator, her wrinkled face knit into a frown.

"What are you talking about?" Mia demanded boorishly. "I didn't want to ask you anything."

"You slipped me this note asking to come here right now, didn't you?" The stout blonde woman in front of her stated as she showed her the note.

"This isn't mine," The blackette said as she read the note carefully. "I wonder…"

At that moment something snapped in Professor Vincke. The sexagenarian grabbed Mia by the sleeves of her purple bolero and with wild eyes shouted hysterically.

"That means someone knows I sold you the poison! You told me this would remain a secret between us both!"

"Calm down!" Mia exclaimed as the older woman shook her. "I know exactly who is behind this!"

"How could you be so stupid! We'll both end up in prison if the DOP finds out!"

"I said: Calm down!"

Mia only made a slight defensive gesture with her hand. It was just a little push. But it was enough to send Professor Vincke over the railing around the balcony and fall about thirty meters down.

In an impulse Heather ran to the railing and looked down where the stout old woman with the shoulder-length blonde hair lay on the cobblestoned parking lot in a pool of blood as wide as her body, every bone in her body shattered on impact.

"This was your doing!" Mia exclaimed. "I have to get out of here! There are people down there! They'll be coming up here soon. Nobody can know I was up here!"

As the woman ran to the door Heather teleported there and cast a quick entrapment spell.

"You aren't going anywhere!" She threatened. "You are finally going to pay for all of the murders you committed, starting with my mother's!
I am a witness to what happened! Christina will be here any minute, so I promise you won't escape arrest. Now tell me how you made my mother and aunt take the poison you murdered them with!"

With tears in her eyes Heather stood in the doorway with a furious Mia in front of her.

Then Mia's expression changed into a vicious grin.

"Alright, Heather," She said." I'll tell you how I poisoned your mother. "

---

It was strange how things turned out.
Each witch was only told at what time their fight was but not against whom they would fight, and they were asked to keep the information they received a strict secret.

Heather hadn't expected that she would face off against Karolina Samargiu. The girl with the shoulder-length dark-blue hair stood grinning at about ten meters distance.

Heather looked up at her step-aunt Alice. The kind woman and her baby would be safe now. She exchanged a thumbs up with the still pale woman.
With Christina's help she would finally be able to take revenge for her poor mother.

Now she had a chance to take some sort of revenge for what Karolina had done to Elaine.
It sickened Heather how the Macedonian hadn't even been arrested at the time.

Even in REX it paid to know the right people, and Elaine's family knew no one and were nobodies in the organization. Karolina's family on the other hand were all high-ranking members in the organization's hierarchy.

"The next mock battle will be between the third-year students Heather Powell and Karolina Samargiu!" The referee exclaimed, her voice magically amplified, seated on her broom about ten meters above the large arena. "As a reminder: This battle does not serve to declare a winner but to provide combat experience.
It will last for seven minutes. The combatants are expected to fight convincingly but will be protected from real injury by the local healers from the department of welfare!
The spectators and environment will also be protected by the special features of the magiconstruct room we are in!"

That Czech first-year student with the long dark-brown hair she talked to earlier had told Heather that the battles were brutal. And although she was a first-year that girl had been in a fencing club before she started school at Hexentanzplatz.
No matter. Heather was determined to show Elaine's murderer what she was worth.

"Prepare yourself to fight! The battle begins… Now!"

Heather and Karolina each fired an energy blast at the other, both of which collided with a great explosion.

Instantly Heather teleported to Karolina's position and conjured up her light-saber but when she arrived Karolina was gone.

The beautiful girl with the long straight light-orange hair looked up where the bluette floated five meters above her, launching another energy attack down at her.

Heather appeared next to her elegant foe and lunged forward with her glowing saber, but Karolina teleported to her left and surprised the girl with a quick right jab smashing a shockwave into Heather's face that sent her flying.

The smiling girl with the smooth shoulder-length dark-blue wavy hair created a bright flash to further disorient her opponent and teleporting again she punched her adversary with the long bright hair in the ribs below her right breast as Heather conjured up a rain of fiery daggers and hurled them to her left.

Heather quickly teleported while reeling from the pain and was able to hit Karolina with a shockwave from about five meters distance while heating up the air around herself to about 400.000 degrees in order to protect herself while she caught her bearings.

Karolina came seemingly out of nowhere and attacked with her light-saber, but Heather reacted fast and was able to hit her opponent at the top of the shoulder before the Macedonian swiped the girl's light-saber to the side.

Determined to go on the offensive Heather launched a bunch of fireballs as she tried to hit Karolina with a shockwave from her left fist, but the nimble girl with the dark-blue hair teleported both of them out of harm's way and punched her gasping slender orange-haired opponent in the abdomen before teleporting away and launching a series of energy rays at Heather with the power to destroy a planet.

The young Seattle born witch teleported out of the way and cast a glowing red ribbon around her adversary which was instantly burned to nothing by Karolina as both of the willowy maidens exchanged blows with their light-sabers.

I

"Hey! Welcome back!" Rasa Lugailo greeted her roommate Bohdana as the brunette sat down next to her on the bleachers. "Feeling better?"

"Yes, I had a quick shower. I can't believe how that girl made me sweat," The Czech laughed.

"You thoroughly beat her though," Her other roommate, Anna Rozsalyi smiled. "She looked really haggard in the end, poor thing."

"No wonder you got selected to join in the assault on Saturday even though you're just a first-year student like us," Rasa added.

"Don't worry. I'll keep Bohdana safe."

Bohdana looked up at Filip Duda's smiling handsome face. Her partner for the coming assignment was sitting right behind her.

"Thank you, Filip," She smiled back while sliding her long hair from before her eyes. "I hope we can achieve a quick victory without anyone getting hurt."

"These two are going at it too," Rasa interrupted with her eyes on the current battle in front of them. "They're certainly not trying to keep each other from getting hurt."

"It's almost over," Filip told the blonde Latvian. "That one girl won't last much longer."

I

Karolina nimbly evaded a hook from her desperate adversary and viciously stabbed the girl with the long bright-orange hair in the shoulder, causing Heather to lose her light-saber. With lightning speed, the girl with the shoulder-length dark-blue hair landed a devastating cross in between her gasping victim's breasts.

"I'm at my limit," Heather whined pitifully as she teleported frantically in order to avoid her opponent's attacks. "She's too strong. I don't stand a chance."

"You can't keep running, Heather!" Karolina grinned savagely as she appeared before the still wheezing orangette who found herself in the crossfire of blue energy orbs her opponent had launched at her.

The amused bluette hit the slender girl in the ribs before Heather was able to escape again.

"I'm sorry, Elaine," Heather wept miserably. "I wasn't even able to beat your murderer in battle, let alone avenge you."

Tears ran down her cheeks as she was enveloped in a bubble in which Karolina raised the temperature to unbearable heights.

Then the smiling Macedonian appeared behind Heather and launched a shockwave at her back. Heather opened her mouth in a soundless cry of pain.

"I'm sorry, Elaine…" She wept. "I failed you."

Then, her body spent, the exhausted girl lost consciousness and, her long light-orange hair billowing in the wind, her delicate limp body plunged downward.

---

"So you're finally waking up?" Heather heard Christina say as she blinked.

She closed her eyes again and reflected on her situation. She sensed warmth and firmness around her and underneath her. Christina's warmth enveloped her.

"Are you still in pain?" The DOP officer who sat on Heather's bed while the orangette was sprawled out on the light-green sheets asked while stroking her girlfriend's hair.

"Hmm… No. But this lap pillow is very soothing," Heather smiled.

"You were quite exhausted. The DW healers were able to keep you from harm, but you've been sleeping for hours. It's almost time for dinner."

"How did things go with Mia?" Heather asked with a hopeful look in her eyes.

"Well…" Christina began with uncharacteristic hesitation. "It seems Professor Vincke's demise couldn't have come at a better time for us."

"What do you mean?" Heather asked with dread in her heart as she crawled out of her bed and kneeled on the floor in front of her girlfriend.

"I've started the investigation on Professor Vincke's death as soon as I had Mia sent to the ICC detention center and quickly discovered that Mia was using the hubbub of the coming war to get rid of all her enemies. In a few weeks' time Lia is going to come back from the three-month exchange program she spent at Luna Negra. I discovered text messages between the two in which they organized your murder as well as that of Professor Vincke."

"What?!" Heather exclaimed in sudden horror while a tremor ran through her thin frame.

"Your suspicions about Mia's poisoning of her sister-in-law Alice Anderson are turning out to have been well-founded."

Christina stopped talking as she noticed the frantic despair in her girlfriend's moistening blue eyes.

"Then everything I have been doing would have been for nothing…! I was so proud of all my silly little plots," Heather cried hysterically. "I was trying to make allies to take Mia on...! But all this time death was traveling toward me! As soon as Lia Accola returned home I would have died!"

Christina smiled indulgently as her girlfriend flung her head into her lap while weeping a river.

"All my careful planning would have been pointless! All my resolve wasted! Because Lia would have murdered me and I would never be able to take revenge for how Mia victimized and destroyed my mother and aunt!" The girl sobbed on the skirt of Christina's light-blue tunic.

The DOP officer lifted the broken girl's face up and saw the tears flooding from her eyes over her cheeks.

"I was so naive to think I could take on this merciless unrelenting machine of destruction and murder! All this time I was but a lost sheep surrounded by wolves who were contemplating which one of them would get to tear me apart!"

"That is why I told you to let me help you," Christina softly stated as the brunette pulled her girlfriend up and hugged the shivering sobbing girl with the long light-orange hair. "Let me and the rest of the DOP take Mia on. She's well aware of what would await her if she lets loose anything about REX, so we shouldn't have a problem on that account."

"I feel like a butterfly caught in a spider's web," Her inconsolable girlfriend kept sobbing, forming the words with shivering lips that clung together because of her tears. "I was the last of my family which was almost completely wiped out by Mia and her daughters."

Heather felt a sudden dizziness as Christina said: "That isn't actually true."

"What? What do you mean?" The girl with the long straight light-orange hair whimpered.

"I did some digging in your family situation.

I thought it was unusual that Mia gave birth to Ami and Lia at home in the company of nobody than a single midwife and secluded herself during the last few days of your mother's life while your father was on a business trip.
It's not unheard of to go through labor in such a way, but I thought it was peculiar since your pregnant mother died during those days. Also at home.

Then I started to wonder why Lia was being sent on a special educational stay at Luna Negra and why Mia pulled strings to have her exempted from the coming battle while she didn't go that trouble for Ami… "

Heather slowly looked up, her face wrinkled and wet from excessive sobbing.

"All the official papers concerning your mother's death mention that her daughter died with her, but here's the peculiar thing: When I checked her weight on the results of the post-mortem examination prior to the operation that should have removed your unborn sister from within her it mentioned her as being 8 full kilos less than she weighed during her last medical examination," Christina said, looking pointedly into Heather's eyes.

" N… No…" Heather muttered, getting a relapse of that strange dizziness.

"I was able to trace the doctors who examined your mother and the midwife who helped Mia give birth to Lia, and after involving the police in a few spicy interviews I can say with certainty that the young woman raised as Ami Accola is actually your one year younger sister."

"How… How evil…" Heather gasped. "Why would she do that? Why would she raise the daughter of the woman she murdered as her own?"

"I suspect at that time Mia Accola was still a little nervous about murdering babies. A problem she sadly overcame by the time she murdered your aunt."

"But… then you have to get Ami out of the battle on Saturday! Please, can you do that?" Heather pleaded, placing her hands on Christina's arm.

"Wow there!" The tall young woman with the short wavy brown hair exclaimed. "It was very difficult to get you out of the battle. There is no way I can manage that again with so little time. I'm sorry, my little canary. I would like to help your sister, but what you're asking can't be done."

"Then I have to join the battle to watch over her!"

Christina looked nervously into her agitated girlfriend's eyes.

"What are you saying? The chances of someone to survive a battle depend on their own luck and ability, nobody can watch over anyone else. Each person who takes part in a battle is just another weapon and another potential victim.

Besides, Ami isn't aware of any of this. To her, you are an enemy. She won't thank you for endangering yourself in a foolish attempt to keep her safe."

"I know all that," Heather quietly replied, looking up sadly into her girlfriend's kind green eyes. "But I just found out that my sister whom I thought died before her birth is still alive and my house and classmate. The girl whom I have been exchanging hurtful words and vicious attacks with is my very own sister, and she is about to go to war.
How can you expect me not to want to be close to her?
I'm sorry, Christina. I know you will worry over me, but there simply is no way I can let Ami go to war without me."

"Heather…" Christina sighed.

"Alright. I'll see what I can do."

"I'm sorry," Heather whispered while she sadly hugged her disappointed lover. "I promise that I won't do anything stupid. And I'll stay in touch with you whenever I can."

"I know," Christina sighed. "This is my own fault. I shouldn't have told you."

---

"Hey, are you alright? That other girl sure did a number on you if you don't mind me saying so?" Heather heard to her right as she stood in line for a large green minotaur-troll to scoop up a portion of potato and onion rostis for her and Christina on the two plates she balanced in her hands in the large student cafeteria with the black-and-white speckled floor tiles.

She recognized the tall girl with the long dark-brown hair staring at her with a concerned look from earlier.

"Yes. Thank you, …"

"Oh! I'm sorry," The girl chuckled. As before she seemed like a very kind person. "I didn't tell you my name earlier. I'm Bohdana Smola from class 1C. You still seem a little out of it. Are you sure you are alright?"

"Yes. Thank you for your concern," Heather replied, feeling cheered up somewhat by Bohdana's presence. "It's just that I had a lot of things on my plate. My name is Heather Powell. I am in class 3B."

"Nice to meet you. I can imagine you're pretty nervous? I'm feeling jittery myself about going to battle. My parents weren't REX members before I was drafted for the assault team, but luckily they weren't fufians either. Some people from Blue Skies helped me talk to them and they understand what's at stake even if they are worried."

"My mother is dead, but…"

"Oh? I'm sorry," Bohdana interrupted. "How did it happen?"

"Oh no. She didn't die recently. It happened when I was only one year old."

"That's still sad. To lose your mother so young...

I lost a dear friend some months back. She died in a broom flight accident. I hadn't known her for long... Well, I knew her when I was younger and wasn't very nice to her. But when I met her again a year or so ago we became really good friends. You'll always miss people who are important to you, I think. No matter if you lost them a year or twenty years ago."

"That's true," Heather smiled, feeling consoled by her new friend's empathy. "I'm sorry you lost your friend. But… how come you are in the assault team if you are a first-year student?"

"Well for starters, I'm the same age as you," Bohdana smiled while she put a hand through her hair, holding her plate in the other one. "But the officers were impressed with my sword-fighting skill and my rapid progress with offensive magic. I guess Nela's passion rubbed off on me. My roommates are always telling me I study too much."

Heather watched the handsome strapping brunette laugh again and started to feel more hopeful about the future.

"And I've got the mightiest REX soldier in Poland paired up with me," Bohdana laughed again. I think he's starting to get interested in me in a not-so military way. I have to say I kind of like him too."

"Good for you," Heather giggled. "I'm sad that I'm leaving my girlfriend behind. She doesn't like it that I'm going."

"Yes. This isn't a school trip after all," Bohdana frowned. "A lot of people are worried about us. But I think we should be alright.
From what I can tell REX seems to have this assault planned really well.
Oh? It's your turn."

Heather saw the Czech point ahead of her and turned around to find she was next in line to be served. The minotaur troll behind the counter smiled at her and beckoned her closer.

---

"So you want to know how I got your mother to keep taking the poison, Heather?" Mia grins.

"Yes! I want to know exactly what happened between you two!" Heather exclaims with tears in her eyes.

"Well, seeing as I'm trapped here and people will be coming any minute I don't have much time," Mia observes, hearing the sound of people swarming around the bloody dead body of Professor Vincke.

"By the time she was six months pregnant, I had firmly impressed upon your weak mother that I had crushingly defeated her," The handsome woman with the wavy black bob smiled. "But she wasn't aware of how pitifully she and everyone she held dear were at my mercy.
That was when I revealed to her that I had cast a gravity bubble around you. When she learned that I could kill you at any time and she didn't know how to lift the spell she actually pleaded to take her life instead, in return for my promise to raise you after her death. She willingly took the poison I served her in order to save you."

"Mother…" Heather weeps, bending over as she holds her hand before her lips.

"Why?!" The slender girl with the long light-orange hair in the white blouse and orange skirt demands. "Why did you murder my mother and aunt? Why are you so evil?!"

"Why? Because of money, of course," Mia smirks. "I had your mother's rich husband, but I wanted her money too.
Your aunt was just in the way. An annoying bug that gave me no other choice but to crush her.
But I have something else to tell you."

Heather straightens up and looks into Mia's purple eyes, feeling a strange dizziness come over her.

"That's right, you little idiot. After all that training you received in offensive magic and after becoming fufian an ordinary human witch like me gets the better of you," Mia glares as she keeps the girl's gaze as well as her mind captive.

"As I said, I had another plan to get rid of you once and for all. But I'll have to use another method now.
One after the other, you Powells keep trying to create trouble for me and I have to reunite you with the Allform.
Luckily you all die so easily or I would get frustrated by you pests.

So your DOP girlfriend is going to send me to Den Hague is she? Well, a moment is all I need to put the same concept into her head as I will put into yours, you naive little girl," Mia grins as she comes closer to the immobile Heather.

"After all, your dead relatives are so important to you that nothing in your present life matters as much, does it?

If I make you believe that Ami is your once presumed dead sister there is nothing that will stop you from convincing Miss Schulze to get you a place in the assault team," Mia gloats as her purple eyes keep Heather's captive.

"In two days' time, you will join my cunning Ami in the assault on Dinas Affaraon.
Convinced that she is your sister you will lower your guard as you influence the soldier you are paired with to stay close to her and her soldier.
And as you swear to protect her from any danger, resolved not to lose the sister you didn't know you had, Ami will kill you."

---

"Now I enter these hallowed halls a conqueror, yeah," Filiz spoke as she strolled around in between the stone slabs of the underground hospital in Cavendish manor. "Although this dilapidated place doesn't really resemble such a description, does it, Ms. Cavendish?"

The tall athletic young woman with the army-green ombré shoulder-length black hair in the purple Luna Nova uniform looked around at the long tree roots running down along the high walls of the large hall and mold-infested bookcases.

"Anyone who doesn't have proper insight into your psyche would assume that the Mater Familias of one of the most respected and oldest magical dynasties in the world housed her essence in the shrine where your family's sorcerers stone is kept or perhaps in the secret library where you and your descendants gathered their collected wisdom like flowers in a garden. But this is where your heart is really at home, is it not? "

"This can only be the insight of a vicious and heartless predator who aims to know every detail concerning its prey in order to more effectively kill it," A gentle and warm voice commented. "Not the insight of a generous and loving being who desires to know what moves other people and why so she can aid them in their pursuits where possible."

"Ah… But in a way, I am here to do exactly that, my dear Lady Beatrix: to aid us both in our pursuits. For when you become one with me my pursuit will equally become yours," Filiz sang as she floated upward.

A thirty-meter high woman with long platinum-blonde hair wearing a long blue-white coat and surrounded by an aquamarine aura appeared in front of her.

"And what is that pursuit, Miss Osdemir?" The woman inquired. "Why are so many people to be sacrificed to it?"

"You seem to regard my motive and methods with much disdain, Lady Beatrix," Filiz said as she closed her eyes and folded her legs in Lotus position while hovering before Beatrix's face. "I assure you, my pursuit is absolutely worth dying for. I myself am devoting my life to it. The ultimate risk… For the ultimate price!"

"You are mistaken, Miss Osdemir. There is no greater price than to see the smile of a person who is delivered from pain. I can assure you this is true, and I have seen many things. Things I hope you will never witness.
There is a person who loves you dearly, even if she knows what you are really like. I hope this person can sway you from the path you have chosen to follow," Beatrix Cavendish emphatically said.

"I love my dear Nela deeply. But even she will not keep me from what I have always desired," Filiz smiled as her army-green ombré shoulder-length black hair and the similarly colored aura around her started to turn into teal and Beatrix's appearance started to fade.

Then, the gigantic projection of the ole witch's essence dissipated completely as it was absorbed into her visitor and Filiz opened her eyes while she slowly floated down.

"Welcome, my dear Lady Cavendish. I think we are both troubled by the fact that your wonderful descendant Diana will have to do without your essence from now on whenever she performs the Cavendish Dynasty alignment ritual, but she will still be able to draw more than enough power from your other descendants.
And I promise that when the two of us come face to face again the forbearance I will show her shall be befitting her station indeed," The immensely powerful leader of REX grinned with devilish glee.

---

"I foolishly lingered at Balta Vrajitoarelor University's fledgling magic mycology department while I should have left a clone when I arrived there and teleported here to see my friends again and be on time for the opening ceremony.
So I cannot lay the blame for what happened anywhere else but at my own feet. Nevertheless, I feel that the way the situation was handled only aggravated the distrust and panic Chief-Commissioner Karabo somehow and for some reason planted in my friends' hearts. That is why I came to you with this request."

Miranda Holbrooke sat in her desk chair with her red jacket wrapped around her, observing the four students who were lined up on the burgundy carpet that covered the shiny herringbone pattern hardwood floor in Nine Witches Hall.

From left to right Isabelle Hochedé, Sucy Manbavaran, the imposing Sophia Demertzis, and the tall and slender pale light-brown haired Dusana Bolibrucha stared at her while awaiting her response which they already sensed as their headmistress made her feelings on the matter no secret.

"I think we will have a much higher chance of pacifying the Nine New Witches and the girls they took with them if Sucy comes with us," Isabelle quietly stated. "They know her better than they know us. She is one of them.
If they really believe that we are under the control of the life fibers she is close enough to them to be able to convince them otherwise."

Dusana opened her mouth, thinking that she could lay the foundations of friendship with Sucy and Isabelle.

"I agree that they would be more likely to listen…" The girl who wore her brown hair in a bun on the back of her head started.

"Dusana, you have some snot dripping from your nose," Sophia simply said, while doing her best to hide her malevolent intent from their headmistress and fellow students.

Instantly mortified by another of the Greek's nasty personal remarks the violently blushing Slovak conjured up a handkerchief and wiped her nose while she saw Sucy glance disgustedly at her and Headmistress Holbrooke giggle amusedly until the woman sensed how that made her student feel.

"I apologize for laughing, Miss Bolibrucha," She smiled amiably. "But sometimes my humor can be a little childish. Even at my age. I meant no offense."

#Don't let her get to you,# The mortified girl heard Isabelle transmit to her as she bowed in gratitude for Miranda Holbrooke's show of respect. #Sophia is an archetypical bully, but now we are all fufians she has less power over you than she would want to.
In spite of how you feel I know you are strong enough to resist her tricks. Don't allow her to make herself important to you or make you alter your behavior for her.#

Isabelle and Sophia exchanged a vicious look as the latter saw Dusana smile gratefully at the French girl with the silver bob.

"As I said before," Miranda Holbrooke started after hemming her students to attention. "This is not my decision to make. The Great Unifier put the burden of bringing your fellow students back to us on the shoulders of Miss Osdemir. It is her responsibility to make the operation a success, so it would be unfair of me to influence her if your presence would be an impediment to her strategy, Miss Manbavaran."

"I understand your concern," Sucy lazily replied. "But aren't these students your responsibility as well?
I am aware that Filiz Osdemir has proven herself a very capable leader and that this is the reason Kinue tasked her with the mission, but I doubt my friend's parents would agree with the decision to have all of this responsibility weigh on a student."

"I understand that you feel that you would have more luck appealing to your friends," Sophia pedantically interrupted after observing Sucy's sly grin. "But you have to understand that your past relationship has no bearing in this situation. They think we are all drones in the hands of the life fibers. Which means they would think the same of you. I hope you can see that you would react the same way if the situation was reversed?"

As Sucy threw her junior fellow student a dirty look and wondered why Filiz found it necessary to include the notorious bully in her militia Isabelle instinctively looked to her left where the double door next to Headmistress Holbrooke's bookcase opened and her previous roommate walked into the room.

"I apologize for barging in here, Headmistress Holbrooke," Filiz bowed while taking place next to Isabelle on the burgundy carpet. "But my roommate Myriam told me that Isabelle and Sophia made themselves witnesses to a discussion Sucy wanted to have with you about our mission to get our friends back from Dinas Affaraon, so I thought my presence would be required."

"Thank you for coming to my aid, Miss Osdemir," Headmistress Holbrooke sighed. "You see, Miss Manbavaran wants to join you when you depart for Dinas Affaraon to retrieve my renegade students. She is naturally concerned about her friends and is convinced that she would be a diplomatic asset to you…"

"Oh! I completely agree!" Filiz burst out in a cheerful voice while turning to her pleased senior and playing with the coin-shaped pendant with the double-headed eagle that hung from her left ear. "I think that is a great idea. You see, I had been thinking that we need a mediator. Someone who is close to our friends but whom they know wasn't at Luna Nova when they fled during that sad event. I pondered for a long time whether I should call in the aid of the parents of some of them and have them travel to Dinas Affaraon and act in mock outrage while demanding an audience with CM Sabatini. This way they might be brought to our friends and have the occasion to try and reason with them. But you would be a much better mediator!"

"So you want me to enter the Dinas Affaraon dimension by myself and try to arrange a meeting with Council Member Sabatini in order for her to bring me to my friends?" Sucy drawled. "Wouldn't that arouse suspicion?"

"For starters, your friends have been missing you for a long time and have been impatient to see you again, which will make them less cautious when they see you again," Filiz replied, making Sucy grin as she imagined Akko regularly whining why the Filipino hadn't returned to Luna Nova yet during the past school year. "But you have an excellent reason to be at Dinas Affaraon, yeah!"

Headmistress Holbrooke, Isabelle, Sophia, and Dusana frowned as Filiz raised a finger at Sucy.

"It is highly likely - if I can trust the stories I heard from your friends - for your mother to send you to Dinas Affaraon before you start the new school year at Luna Nova in order to negotiate certain formalities about the large inheritance matter that caused your long absence. You need no other plausible pretext to find yourself at Dinas Affaraon. And your friends would readily believe that your mother kept you from traveling to Britain for a week while occupying you with all kinds of things, wouldn't they?"

"That is brilliant indeed," Sucy grinned broadly. "I can see why Kinue keeps encouraging you with this militia you formed here. I am glad you are on our team, Filiz."

"And I'm delighted to be on it," The Japanese witch laughed. "But let us leave our dear dedicated Headmistress Holbrooke to her work now and discuss our strategy in the park."

"Oh? Thank you for working this out between yourselves, girls," Miranda Holbrooke said. "I do share the Great Unifier's trust in you, Miss Osdemir. But if you ever feel overtaxed I will help you any way I can."

"Thank you very much for your concern, Ms. Holbrooke, but I am alright," Filiz bowed as her fellow students walked out of the door she came in through one by one.

"I'm sorry we took up so much of your time, Headmistress. Thank you for occupying yourself with this matter. I certainly don't feel overtaxed. But if I do ever need any help with the tasks I received from the Great Unifier I will come to you for help," Filiz smiled at her school's headmistress before closing the door behind her.

---

Nonon slowly approached Uzu from behind, her eyes on the back of the man in the green vest and blue jeans who was looking up at the women whose severed bodies floated in two large transparent polycarbonate cylinder-shaped tanks.

It was hard for the pinkette to look at the pieces of her friends that were entirely submerged in the glowing pink fluid Shiro had developed after his research on the method Ragyo Kiryuin had used to create Nui.

The sight had something eerie. As if she was playing a part in a horror movie where any second Ryuko might open her eyes and the arm on the left piece of her torso that had been sliced diagonally by Kinue might punch through the cylinder and grab Uzu by the throat.

This was not how you wanted to see your friends.

"Hey," The green-haired dope who had saved the world with her and the black-haired public park maintenance worker he was in love with simply greeted her as she stood behind him.

Behind them Nonon heard the screeches of the falcons in Yuuki's habitat.
She looked at the readings on the displays attached to the base of the cylinders that held her friends and the cables and tubes connected to the wall from which the amniotic fluid was pumped in and out of the cylinders.

"You spend more time down here than Satsuki or Carlos do," She observed. "Is everything alright at the dojo?"

"The dojo is fine," Uzu replied evenly. "I'm not neglecting my responsibilities just because I try to be here whenever I can. And my students are very dependable. The dojo is fine."

The pinkette in the light-blue short skirt and vest over a pink top sat down on the white cafeteria chair next to him.

"Are you eating well?" She asked.

"hmm. I eat my meals at Touji High. The cafeteria is great. Between Touji and the dojo on one hand and this place on the other I don't even go home anymore."

"So I've noticed. Touji has a school cafeteria?"

"Yeah. They have a huge kitchen and storeroom too, but they're in the basement where the janitorial equipment and the archives are stored.
I lost my way once and found myself down there. The place is like a bunker. They once had a homeless guy who lived there for months, stealing food from the storage room and washing himself in the club's showers at night"

"Hello, Nonon. Did you come to keep us company?"

Nonon looked around and saw Rei's handsome tall fiance with the neatly brushed flat top black hair walk towards her and Uzu dressed in beige linen summer trousers and a white T-shirt while holding two bottles of Pocari Sweat.

"I didn't know you'd be coming," Carlos Carrasco smiled apologetically. "I'll go back to the cafeteria and get you a drink too. What do you want?"

"N...no. You really don't have to…" Nonon sweatdropped awkwardly, knowing what Carlos meant.

"Come on," The man smiled. "It's really no trouble."

"Some milk tea, please," The pinkette grinned sheepishly.

"Alright! Coming up," Carlos winked as he split off a clone who went back the way he came from while he handed Uzu his drink.

"I'll never get used to that," Nonon deadpanned.

"Oh? Was that why you were holding back?" Carlos grimaced. "I've gotten so used to sensing how people feel that it's hard to get a read on you guys."

"I'm sorry for taking your seat," Nonon said, getting up.

"Oh? No, don't get up. I'm getting a chair from the cafeteria while I bring your milk tea, so it's only for a few minutes."

Nonon returned the smile of the man standing to her left and looked from him to the guy sitting to her right, both drinking their Pocari.

"Thank you for letting me in here even though I'm fufian," Carlos quietly said with the bottle in his hand.

"Well, we are all fufian apparently," Nonon replied before she continued bitterly: "Besides, Satsuki won't react to any of our attempts to contact her and she exiled herself with three fufians… Let's just call this a small rebellion."

"I promised to not try and talk into you or anything, but I will say this: I'm not entirely happy with how the Great Unifier handled this.
And I've let her know I'm not," Carlos said while staring at the face of the woman he loved. "I know Rei and Ryuko will turn back to normal when they've worked out what is keeping them from fully converting to the fufian race, but Kinue could have gone about this without reducing them to this."

"They'll overcome this soon enough," Uzu remarked, making Carlos and Nonon turn their gazes at him.

"You know, it's strange… I didn't use to think about Ryuko like this a few years ago. So I don't know whether this is the result of becoming fufian.
I remember how we were gaming one time and we were having a lot of fun together.
She was laughing out loud and that made me really happy because I had been thinking she seemed lost at that time after Satsuki and Rei left for their world tour."

"Ryuko had felt like that?" Nonon reacted in surprise.

"I don't think it had anything to do with Satsuki," Her green-haired friend said. "I don't know what was making her feel like that. It seemed like she was struggling with something.

That's why I was trying to let her know I want to be there for her.
I like to see her smile. I like how comforting a presence she is in times of adversity like now. Once she deals with what's been bothering her I know she and Satsuki will find a way to make sense of what's going on.

But even if she hasn't yet, coming here and seeing her face makes me feel better. I hope that somehow she can sense how we are waiting for her to come back to us and feels our support. "

"That's really beautiful," Carlos observed. "Satsuki and Ryuko are very important to each other, aren't they?"

Nonon hung her head.

"I would imagine they were after losing their parents and not even knowing the other existed for most of their lives," Rei's fiance continued. "I remember Rei told me that she was self-conscious about spending so much time with Satsuki. Occasionally she would feel like she was stealing time from Ryuko."

"From Ryuko, of course," Nonon muttered bitterly.

"What's that?" Carlos asked with a curious frown at the pinkette.

"For years now Satsuki has been occupied with these two. When she wasn't working for ShelteR Inc. she was working with Rei on the Root Of Origin project. And when she wasn't working she was having fun with Ryuko."

"Of course she was," Uzu replied dryly as he turned his gaze away from the woman he loved for the first time. "What did you expect? You act like Satsuki never spent time with you."

"Shut up, monkey!"

Uzu recoiled in surprise at the tears in his friend's eyes.

"Of course she was going to be monopolized by them! Ryuko is the sister she thought had died! And Rei was the woman who gave her a new goal! Why would I protest that I was feeling neglected confronted with that?! How could I hope to compete with how important those two were to her?!"

"Nonon…"

"Nobody ever wonders how the childhood friend feels when she steps aside for the sake of the one she loves!" Nonon cried at an astounded Carlos with tears in her eyes. "Of course I was happy for Satsuki! But I also missed being the most important to her!"

"Why didn't you tell her that, you moron?" Uzu reacted in frustration at Nonon's pain.

"How could I possibly tell the most practically ascetic woman I know that I couldn't bear to put myself second anymore?!" Nonon exclaimed, sensing a burning heat rise up inside herself, but feeling unable to keep the words from coming out.

"I wanted to honor Satsuki by taking her example! I wanted to watch her happiness as she and Ryuko were able to spend time as sisters! But I can't do it anymore!" The pinkette wept as the fire inside of her burned away the edges of her ego and freed her from her self-imposed emotional isolation. "I had to tolerate Satsuki being monopolized by Rei and Ryuko! I had to tolerate her semi-imposed hermitage! And now she is secluding herself again while taking the fate of the world on the world on her shoulders!
I won't stand it anymore!" Nonon cried out as her ego escaped its confines and blended into countless others. "My place is by her side!"

The pinkette fell silent and stared ahead. Her body didn't feel the same anymore, nor did her mind. She felt as if she was floating. As if several people including Carlos were floating with her.

#Welcome,# She heard the tall black-haired man in the beige linen trousers and the white T-shirt greet her. #Well done.#

"I… I'm fufian now?" Nonon stuttered and looked up into his eyes.

"You sure are," The man's clone smiled while placing a white chair behind himself and handing her a bottle of milk tea. "Let's toast to it!"

"You were able to fully convert?" Uzu asked curiously.

Nonon looked from Carlos, who merged with his clone and sat down, to her green-haired friend in the green vest and blue jeans and wiped her tears.

"Don't act so surprised, monkey," She smirked with a sniff. "Of course I would be."

"You need to go to Shirõ and Aikurõ at once!" Uzu eagerly exclaimed. "Let them examine you so that they can hopefully discover how they can help Rei and Ryuko!"

"Yes!" Nonon nodded. "You're right."

The pinkette quickly left her seat and ran toward the exit of the underground biotopes.

"Hey, Nonon!" Uzu stopped her.

His friend turned around and watched his face.

"You don't have to live like Satsuki in order to deserve her love," The green-haired kendo teacher smiled encouragingly. "Go to her and tell her what you told us.
We'll be alright over here if she quarantines you with her"

"Thanks," Nonon grinned as she split in two. "I hope I can help Ryuko get back to normal."

Then the pinkette ran off to her two destinations. Hopeful and determined.

---

In the Arc-en-Ciel, which was floating above the North Sea, Ghaliba Ciner walked through residential hallway B with a Nikon D7100 hanging from a leather strap around her neck and counted the doors on the cream-colored walls until she arrived at room 16.

The amusedly smiling Turkish witch who wore her curling black hair in an elegant updo sent a telepathic request for entrance to the girl whose room she was about to visit and almost immediately received permission to enter.

"You're here already, Ghaliba?" Mirtel Arulaid greeted her with a tinge of shame in her voice from the right back corner of the apartment where she was turning around in front of the two large mirrors she had placed next to her sewing table. "I'm sorry if I made you hurry. I was only excited because I was finally able to finish it!"

Ghaliba successfully hid her real feelings underneath a sensation of pleasure in the beauty which the cute Estonian with the short blonde ponytail had created.

"I would have teleported into the room as soon as you told me you finished the dress so I could witness this exquisite splendor instantly if I hadn't felt it would be ill-mannered to do so," The elegant Turkish heiress said to the gratification of the blushing girl in the dark-blue ankle-length summer dress with a pattern of violets that clustered around the hem and the cleavage who swayed her hips from side to side while Ghaliba gazed at her.

Ghaliba took her camera in her hands and kneeled before Mirtel, wearing the light-blue uniform her friend had designed for them all on Mary's request.
A request the gentle Estonian had been eager to oblige her savior in.

"Keep moving like that and smile down at me," Her new amateur-photographer friend said while she took picture after picture. "Think of how pleased Mary will be when you present this beautiful dress to her."

Mirtel smiled even brighter at Ghaliba now and innocently rocked her body to and fro while the Turkish young woman stealthily moved around her, pleased to sense the affection her friend felt for her together with the anticipation of surprising Mary with the dress the Estonian girl had created out of gratitude for how Mary brought her to the Arc-en-Ciel and saved her life after Filiz almost burned her to death.

"I have an idea," Ghaliba smiled as she stood up and took a surprised Mirtel's hands in her own.

"I'd like you to pretend that you are dancing with Mary. Follow this rhythm and dance around me while I take pictures," The handsome Znakharka Dom student with the intense dark eyes and the gorgeous black curls said as she and the girl she had fallen in love with slowly waltzed around the room.

After about a minute, Ghaliba let go of Mirtel's hands and started taking pictures again.

"No no. Don't pretend you're holding Mary. Just leave your arms at the distance they were when I held them," She said as her friend brought her arms closer together while they moved around one another, both enjoying themselves together as usual but while keeping a certain distance.

"You really enjoy photography, don't you, Ghaliba," Mirtel observed with a smile full of joy as the beautiful blonde danced around her friend and sensed her satisfaction and happiness. "Your pictures take my breath away, they are so full of life and color."

"I enjoy capturing beauty at its most vivid moment," The focused Turkish girl replied. "I am cheating a little compared to photographers who don't know magic, of course, since being able to observe the Tsozorotyuin-fluctuations in the All-form's universal substantiation and the Noxofixation of Aldruich particles enables me to pinpoint the most intense moment of beauty in a particular situation.
I can still remember the first time my uncle took me with him to take pictures in Yenice forest and the moment I realized I could use what I learned in magic school to make better pictures. So yes, I love photography.

It's the same with you, isn't it? I can see that you pour your entire soul in the dresses you design and create."

"That's true," Mirtel smiled. "And I love it even more now I have someone to create them for."

Ghaliba knew how devoted Mirtel had become to Mary. The bluette was her savior, her idol, her heroine.
The beautiful Turkish girl was used to the life one would expect from the eldest daughter of one of Turkey's most powerful families.
It was only now that there was something that she really wanted that she knew she wouldn't be able to get it.
She couldn't just confess her feelings to her friend. Against the image Mirtel had formed of Mary she didn't stand a chance.

"Let's wrap it up here," She said. "I have so many wonderful pictures already."

"Alright," Mirtel said. "Then let me enjoy some beauty too."

Ghaliba recoiled in surprise as she found her friend had used a spell to swap their dresses.

She saw herself in the mirror wearing the dress Mirtel had created for Mary and with her friend standing next to her with a joyous smile Ghaliba reveled in how well the dress suited her.

"I can make one for you too, if you want?"

"No. That's not necessary. You made this dress for…" The Turkish witch with the black curled updo protested while holding her hands up in front of her chest with outward-facing palms.

"In fact, I'll make one for you for sure. Just don't wear it when Mary is wearing hers, please," Mirtel giggled.

"Thank you. I'll treasure it," Ghaliba smiled as she looked herself over in the mirror.

"Elizabeta wants us to have battle practice again in twenty minutes," She continued after a while and used a spell to get into her uniform again while she folded Mirtel's dress up and placed it onto the girl's sewing table.

"What? Again?"

"She wants to compensate for being the only group who hasn't gone into battle."

"But we've been practicing and training since Mary formed the groups," Mirtel objected. "We are probably the strongest group in the Survival Club."

"I wish you hadn't appropriated that horrible name Gabriella devised for us," Ghaliba sighed.
"What if I told you that this is what Mary wants?" She smirked.

"Then I will gladly go to practice," The cute slightly shorter girl with the blonde ponytail smiled with a short bow of her head.

Ghaliba had the sight of how that girl had looked with her body horribly burned lying among the trees around Lake Ülemiste etched into her mind.
The Turkish witch was the first of them Mary had saved and had been comparatively easily healed from her one near-fatal wound.
When Mary then took the Arc-en-Ciel to Tallinn they divided the circumference of the lake among them.

"Are Scarlett's girls not back yet?" Mirtel inquired as she opened the door to the hallway for her handsome and refined friend.

"They came back about two hours ago actually," Ghaliba said. "But they are all exhausted. After a quick health check they went straight to bed."

"Oh my…! They must have had a terrible fight!"

"Actually, it was because they each had a practice match against Nela Novotna that they came back so exhausted," Ghaliba smiled at her friend.

"Oh," Mirtel laughed. "I guess she is every bit as motivated as Mary told us. Poor them," The beautiful and boyish Estonian said as her friend closed the door of her room behind her and they walked through the hallway laughing together.

Mirtel's eyes were the only part of her that still had life in them that night. Ghaliba's own eyes were fixed on them, speaking to those gentle hopeful beautiful light-lavender orbs with an ardent promise that she would bring her to safety as she lifted her up and teleported her to safety.

Mary joined her in the Arc-en-Ciel's medical center the moment Ghaliba had lain Mirtel in a regeneration bath.
From then on the Turkish witch took the care of the girl upon her after Mary taught her how and while the mysterious bluette kept bringing more severely wounded girls to the ship.

It was pure coincidence that Mary was the first person Mirtel saw when she regained consciousness, and since Mary told them that she had foresight which had allowed her to save them all after Filiz had fought them Mirtel assumed that she had been saved by Mary as well.

It was only later that Ghaliba truly fell in love with her fellow survivor, but Mirtel was immediately so attached to Mary that the blackette decided it was kinder to keep the truth to herself.

And while thus striving hard to constantly camouflage her feelings, Ghaliba walked with Mirtel past the door to the room where Anastasia Dolgorukova lived.

The tall and graceful Russian with the long white hair sat on her bed while hugging her knees, dressed in dark-grey frilled tap pants and a white camisole.

"Uwaa… Mama… papa… I'm scared… I miss you so…" The girl wept quietly. "I miss you… I love you so much…"

Fariyane Farhadi sat by on a wooden chair placed at the head of the bed next to Anastasia's bedside table where she had placed a warm cup of tea when her friend had stopped sobbing out loud and showed signs of calming down.

The tall Iranian witch in the light-blue uniform always found it heartbreaking to watch the Russian with the red shine in her white hair during the most violent phases of her anxiety attacks. She was grateful it had only taken Anastasia a quarter of an hour to get over the outburst this time.

Fariyane found it especially frustrating that the Russian Princess couldn't tolerate any attempts at trying to bring comfort through physical contact.

Even now, if she would lay her hand on that of Anastasia it was likely to send the girl back into a bawling tantrum that made the girl with the blue hijab over her long black hair fear her friend would harm herself if she wasn't there during the panic attacks.

Luckily there wasn't much Anastasia could do to harm herself as a fufian.

"Thank you for coming when I called you," The girl with the long wavy white hair said matter-of-factly as she left the bed after magically cleaning her face and airways.

"I wish you would just ask Mary to help you with your illness," Fariyane sighed. "I read about the amazing success psychiatric hospitals are having in permanently healing patients after they became fufian. I'm sure Mary would know of a way to help you."

"Thank you for coming when I called you," Anastasia repeated in her usual imperial way of speaking while she dressed in her uniform with her back to Fariyane. "Your concern and discretion are highly valued."

"Well, in any case..." Her friend said while she sensed Anastasia fearing that to be healed would deprive her of the emotions connected to her parents. "If everything goes as planned none of us will be in any danger. We can trust Mary to pull this off without anyone needing to worry."

"Phuh! Why would anyone trust a person who claims to come from the future and makes us fight for her while keeping us informed on a need-to-know basis?" Anastasia huffed and turned around with an irritated expression. "How dare she tell us where and when we can go?"

"This is all for our good, Anastasia," Fariyane pleaded. "It's for the good of everyone. Can't you see how too much knowledge about the future might have us make dangerous mistakes? And as Mary explained: keeping us from seeing the people important to us is the best way to keep them safe."

"Is that so, Fariyane? Let me tell you, you could stand to learn a few things on how to be a good friend!"

The Iranian witch heaved a deep sigh as her irritated friend walked past her towards the hallway door.

"I'm sorry, Anastasia. I agree Mary can be a little too authoritarian," She said, hoping to ease the Russian's mind by saying what she knew her friend wanted to hear.
"A lot of us think so. It was very frustrating to me that we had to go to Iran for her but I didn't get to see any of my people."

Princess Anastasia looked back at Fariyane with a frown, sensing how the tall blackette wanted to be a source of comfort to her.

"Let's go to Elizabeta's battle practice," She said while she opened the door and let her friend walk through before she did.

The telepathic #Thank you for your friendship,# She transmitted as they walked through the hallway was much more than Fariyane needed to make up for the small trouble of watching over the cold white-haired beauty who strode in front of her.

---

"That concludes my presentation on how we will deal with Nela Novotna and Mary Twycross if we encounter them on the battlefield," Léa Charpentier addressed the 64 REX officers assembled in the auditorium at Volch'ya Logovo lyceum.

The men and women sat dressed in their dark-blue REX uniform, nervous about all that they had just been told but confident that Valentina would once again steer them to victory.

They were right to be nervous in spite of their trustworthy leadership.
The things they had heard from Léa about the powers of their enemies were frightening. But if they were successful in the coming endeavor REX would be nigh untouchable.

Yasmine Bennouna shared a smile with her superior who activated the television and video projector on the table beside her on the rostrum so everyone was able to witness the event the tall French-woman with the long dark-yellow hair had informed them of on the projection screen behind her.

Can I ask...?" Tylla Tajyýeva started as the brawny black-haired Turkmen witch raised her arm.

"If any of you has any more questions I will answer them after the event," Léa stated while the new Russian President addressed the nation on the screen behind her.
"I hope I was able to adequately prepare you all for what we are about to see. So whatever happens next, don't fall to pieces. Hahahaha!" The alchemy teacher joked about her well-known mishap in Mauritania.

"... may cause panic among you, but I promise you that there is no need for fear," The man on the projection screen said with the Russian double-headed eagle on a blue banner behind him. "In the past year, a genetic revolution has been taking place among us and in other countries around the world. This revolution led to wonderful change, and many of you have benefitted from those changes.
All over the world government leaders who have become part of this genetic revolution resolved long-standing conflicts and national problems that were a burden on the population of the country they serve.

Many ordinary people have become part of this genetic revolution and found the quality of their lives and relationships improved immeasurably."

Yasmine, Tylla, Léa, and their fellow REX officers saw their President take a sip from a glass of water before he continued.

"The revolution, which I hope you will all become a part of after the following transmission, began in Tokyo.

Magic and science cooperated, enabling a woman of great magnanimity and vision to isolate DNA from the much-debated life fibers which once tried to invade us and fuse it with our own in a way that not only greatly enhanced the abilities of a human body but also made it possible for people to communicate with each other in a much more profound way.
People who have become part of the new race that resulted from this genetic revolution are able to understand and sympathize with each other through a telepathic empathic interaction called Shared Consciousness.

Because of the genetic makeup of this new race, doctors have cured patients of previously incurable diseases and people who suffered from psychiatric disorders were definitively healed through new therapies that take advantage of the ability the new race has to reshape their body.

Kinue Kinagase, the woman who, together with three others, was responsible for this discovery, wanted to share it with others as soon as possible. Since the isolated life fiber DNA was fused with human DNA in a fungus these people devised a method to transport spores of the fungus inside bags of tea.
To distribute this tea they made a business agreement with the Japanese Perfect Fusion tea Company.
As people in Japan who became part of this new fufian race advised the tea to their friends and family, who in turn became fufians through inhalation of the spores contained in the tea bags, Perfect Fusion grew and was able to open branches in other countries.

As you are all probably aware of, Perfect Fusion is now a worldwide multinational whose products can be bought in every country, so anyone can become fufian by buying a packet of tea or coffee from them and smelling the aroma."

Léa grinned coldly at the man on the screen while sitting next to Yasmine.

"But this is not the limit to the blessings Kinue Kinagase developed for the benefit of her fellow man," The Russian President continued. "Presently she is preparing to address all of us herself from the city of Nova Pangea in Ethiopia together with two witches who have been working with her to revolutionize witchcraft.
As my address to you ends you will all be witness to the live broadcast from Omnimagi Stadium where she will present what the three of them have developed for the benefit of all.

I wish you goodnight, my fellow Russians, and I hope you will all have a cup of Perfect Fusion tea or coffee when you start the day or when you come home from work."

---

Instantly, after the Emperor expressed his blessings, Satsuki and Nonon saw the image on the television screen shift to the stage of a gigantic stadium.

The two young women were seated close together, Nonon's left hand held in Satsuki's right. Behind them, Shizuku, Mako, and Mitsuzo Soroi sat, eagerly awaiting what Kinue had planned.

---

Kinue herself stood in the middle of the stage with a screen, whereupon the sky and the moon above Nova Pangea were visible, erected behind her.

The Great Unifier was visibly excited. Grinning broadly, she was aware that her brother was looking down on her from his apartment

"Ohayo gozaimasu, Nihon!" She greeted with a slight bow.

---

"Doobraye Ootro, Sibir'!" The REX members watching the transmission at Khoid Tengis Magic Lyceum saw Kinue greet them on the screen erected inside of their school's main building.

---

"Melikami mishiti', ıtiyop'iya!" She said under loud applause from the people who had bought tickets to watch the event in the stadium.

---

"Good evening, Great Britain!" Diana, Emma, Akko, and their agitated friends saw the clouded brunette in the white lab coat address them on the screens of their smartphones.

---

Gwendoline Myers, who was sitting in the diner where she first met Abril Saez, glared suspiciously at the woman on the television screen who wished her and everyone in the US a good afternoon.

With apprehension in her heart, the young woman with the dark-purple hair ate her hash browns with her eyes on Kinue, determined to later provide Abril a detailed description of what happened during the broadcast as promised.

---

"Buenas tardes, Chile!" Gabriëlla and Gretchen saw the Great Unifier greet them on the screen of the Spanish witch's smartphone in Suyai Maripán's underground temple.

"Look at that monster, acting like a celebrity," Gretchen huffed.

"Be quiet. I want to hear what she'll say next," Her companion glared.

"I don't see why your people see us as their enemy when she has been orchestrating an alien invasion!"

"I told you: It's not like that," Gabriëlla said while looking the German witch in the eyes. "Now be quiet or I'll put you in the magiconstruct cell already!"

Gretchen huffed and raised her eyes up to heaven, but obeyed with little protest, to Gabriëlla's relief.

Her prisoner was a handful, the girl with the long wavy black hair thought, but she could tell Gretchen was a good girl deep down.

"As if there's any way we can fight a living God," The Spanish witch grumbled. "The only way we can get her to dethrone herself is by trying to reason with her."

---

In the same manner, Kinue greeted the entire world population in every one of its many languages and dialects at the exact same time, concluding her introduction with a satisfied smile.

Croix and Chariot stood on the side of the large screen behind Kinue and watched their friend patiently wait until the crowd in Omnimagi Stadium stopped cheering and applauding.
Even after it did, Kinue continually heard messages through Shared Consciousness from people around the world, since the event was promoted with the promise that everyone would be able to personally thank the Great Unifier for how their lives improved after becoming fufian.

#My brothers used to be constantly at each other's throat. Since we became fufian our family is at peace and everyone respects each other's sensitivities. Thank you so much, Kinue Kinagase!#

"We certainly have come a long way!" The heroine of millions of people started her speech.

"From the cradle of humanity to the inhospitable North Pole, we have spread around the world and exploited the natural resources of that world to improve our lives and expand our knowledge!"

#I used to hate my life. I was so clumsy. I was insecure and struggled at my job. Now I move with confidence and I can do my work with ease. I love you, Kinue Kinagase!#

"A lot of us didn't make it here! If the life fibers hadn't favored us, Homo Sapiens, fifty thousand years ago we would probably be sharing this world with other human families! And during our violent past, many of us died through the effects of disease, want, and violence!

But even though that violent past claimed the lives of so many of us we learned from what our fellow humans suffered and what we put them through! We learned from the hardships that we endured and that claimed the people who didn't make it here!"

#My beautiful daughter was abducted by violent religious insurgents one year ago. Last month two men brought her back to me, after they became fufians! Thank you, Great Unifier! Thank you so much!#

"So when the life fibers resurfaced and started their celestial cocoon seed planet a brilliant and dearly beloved man chose to fight back the only way he knew: through science! I was lucky enough to have worked with and learned from him!"

Thinking of her mentor, a saddened Kinue looked up and found her brother's eyes on her.

Even though he felt he should know better Tsumugu couldn't help sensing that he understood his sister's feelings at that moment.
In his eyes, Kinue saw that he realized in how far she was doing all of it for Soichiro who had suffered so much for a future where the inhabitants of earth were free and safe.

#My father was dying of a tumor that was growing in his heart. After I became fufian I made him smell a Perfect Fusion tea bag. Now he is sitting next to me with my son on his lap. Thank you so much!#

"Thanks to Soichiro Kiryuin we all survived the actions of his wife, who together with Nui Harime was probably the saddest victim of the life fibers, and are here, enjoying the fruits of his labor and his struggle!" Kinue continued. "Thanks to Soichiro, his enormously brave daughters and a couple of very headstrong witches I was able to rise from my grave!

Which is quite literally what brings us here!"

#After four psychotic episodes my brain had deteriorated so much that I wasn't capable of taking care of myself anymore. I functioned much like a person suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Needing constant care, my life was over at the age of thirty-five. Then a new therapy was used on me after turning me fufian, and I am currently living with my brother and starting work again. Thank you, Kinue Kinagase! You saved me! You saved my life!#

"Humanity has had a troubled relationship with the witches who are the guardians of our world!
We have worshipped them, placed them on the thrones of our nations, persecuted them, and eventually ignored them!
What didn't help make this relationship any less tempestuous is that only women have had the ability to cultivate their link with Ygdrassil sufficiently to be able to harness its power! Many male rulers saw the power of witches as a threat to their authority and tried to break the power these women held!

Their excuses for these actions have come to an end!" Kinue grinned.

While the Great Unifier looked behind her Croix and Chariot took their cue and started to walk toward her, dressed in their Luna Nova uniforms.

"Are you alright?" Croix asked her companion as she noticed the stiff body language of her friend.

"I expected to handle being on a stage again better than this," The redhead grinned sheepishly. "I'm so nervous."

Croix frowned and stopped her friend by laying her hands on Chariot's shoulders.

"Look, Chariot. This is your dream: To show people the beauty of magic. This is what you always wanted to do. The one who corrupted that dream is me.
Professor Woodward knew that you were able to open the Grand Triskellion. It's not your fault that you were unable to do so in the end.
You were meant to bring magic closer to people, that is why I wanted to help Kinue.
So there is no need to be nervous, because this stage has been waiting for you. Everything is going to go the way it is supposed to go. Don't worry."

"Thank you, Croix," The joyful French-woman smiled. "Thank you. But you're wrong. Akko and Diana were always the ones who were meant to bring magic back to the world. We did what we had to do: We showed them the way.

You're right about one thing though," The redhead said, looking ahead with renewed courage. "This stage has been waiting for us."

Her friend taking her hand in hers caught Croix by surprise, but the Italian witch was finally feeling that she was making amends when she sensed the desire in Chariot's heart to make people smile again. So, happy for Chariot she followed beside her.

"These two magic school teachers have taught me witchcraft and helped me to develop a vision for a new age of magic!" Kinue announced as Chariot and Croix came and stood on either side of her. "Their names are Chariot Du Nord and Croix Meridies! Please welcome them into your hearts, because they will now help all of you all over the world to perform a magic spell together!"

---

"What… What are they going to do?!" Akko exclaimed, sitting on her bed in the dormitory at Dinas Affaraon with Emma and Diana watching her smartphone on either side of her. "Why didn't Chariot tell us anything about any of this?!"

"That's not her, remember?" Emma tried to comfort the furious brunette. "They're all pawns of the life fibers."

"Actually…" A pale Diana interjected. "I'm starting to think that things might be more complicated than we have been assuming."

---

"Thank you for your warm applause, Nova Pangea!" Chariot exclaimed with a bright smile as she instantly stepped into her stage persona while Kinue took position behind her and Croix.

"It's a beautiful spring evening out here with the stars and the moon shining so bright above us! On a night like this, my fingers itch to use a magic spell that can celebrate such beauty by creating even more beauty!"

The crowd in Omnimagi Stadium celebrated Chariot's talent and experience as a stage performer with another round of applause.

Tsumugu, who was still looking down on the stage moved his gaze from Chariot to his sister who was just smiling up at him.
His curiosity and concern were rising, but there was another sensation welling up in him too. A sensation he didn't want to allow.

"I have a confession to make!" Chariot told her audience.

#What are you doing?# Croix asked her friend, sensing her intentions.

#Don't worry, Croix. Like we said: This stage has been waiting for us. It's time to lift this weight from my heart.#

"Some of you might know that at one time I was a stage performer who wanted to share my magic with the world! I was young and full of good intentions, but I was also inattentive to the world I wanted to share my love for magic with!
As a result, I made a horrible mistake that haunts me to this day! And the symbol of that mistake was the scar my magic accidentally grifted into the moon!
I was not ready then for the power I wielded!

I have learned much and grown more mature now and I desire to repair the wrongs I did! That is why I want to hold your hands! The hands of everyone around the world, fufians, and humans, as we all use magic together and repair the more substantial damage that was recently done to the beautiful companion of our earth!"

Croix activated a magitronic sorcery unit that hovered up and projected a bright highly detailed slowly rotating 3D hologram of the moon over the center of Omnimagi Stadium. A hologram that was visible in the center of the screens of everyone who was watching the broadcast around the world.

"I ask you to feast your eyes on the beauty of this image of our moon! Observe its maria, craters, and lunar swirls! It is a hundred percent exact visual copy of the real moon! Concentrate on every feature of the image you see before you! Admire its beauty and its detail! Imagine the moon beyond the surface! Imagine its solid iron-rich inner core, its fluid liquid iron outer core, its partially molten mantle, and its crust!"

High above Nova Pangea, high above the skies around the world the roots, trunk, and branches of Yggdrasil became visible in their bright shiny glory as the magical energy accessed by people around the world took shape.

Kinue's clone which floated even higher stopped disguising itself as the moon and shrunk back to her human form.

"You will ask me why we are looking at this image instead of at the moon above us!" Chariot said. "I ask you all not to panic as I tell you the reason, because there is no cause at all for panic! Our very own Great Unifier, Kinue Kinagase has had a clone of herself floating around us and taking over all of the moon's functions for the past days, because through a recent accident the moon has been completely destroyed!

And while this is a tragedy, it is also a wonderful occasion to show you all what your magic can do if we all work together!"

"Kinue…" Tsumugu muttered in his apartment above as his entire being overflowed with the sensation he couldn't hold down any longer. "I hope you know what you are doing."

"Together we are going to recreate the moon with our magic! The magic that grows from all of us flows through the roots and branches of Yggdrasil, the tree of life which nurtures us all! Now concentrate on the image before us and imagine the moon taking shape in space above us!"

---

"They're actually doing it!" Elfriede exclaimed enthusiastically while she, Sarah, Lotte, and Barbara saw the formation of the new moon in a second frame that appeared next to the view of Omnimagi Stadium on the screen of Lotte's tablet.

"We are all doing it together," Lotte muttered in disbelief.

---

"Feel the magic within you work in unison with everyone else around the world! Isn't it amazing?!" Chariot gushed.

#It is everything I ever wanted,# The redheaded witch shared with her delighted friends Croix and Kinue who completely agreed with her.

All around the world people started to cheer and clap their hands as they saw the moon they were creating materialize on their television, computer, tablet, and telephone screens. People walked into their gardens and into the streets to witness the moon recreated in the sky.

That is when Tsumugu's pride in his sister grew out of its bounds. Like a drop of water in the ocean, the ripples of his ego expanded and met the egos of every other fufian in the world, his consciousness aware of a million other souls who were all aware of him.

#Welcome Tsu. I am so glad you are one of us now,# Kinue smiled with intense gratitude as a clone of her appeared right beside him.

#I couldn't believe it was really you,# Tsumugu started. "I was afraid to believe…"

"I know," Kinue softly replied as she embraced him and rested her head on his strong shoulders. "I'm sorry for the pain I caused you, my darling little brother."

"Kinue… I missed you so," Tsumugu breathed as he held her tight. "You stupid, stupid… I'm so happy that you're alive again."

---

In Volch'ya Logovo Léa Charpentier left the seat beside Yasmine Bennouna.

---

#Tonight the world once again became a little more interesting, my dear Isabelle,# The French witch heard Filiz share with her with such relish that it made Isabelle fear for the future as they saw the completed moon on the large screen in the auditorium at Luna Nova.

---

Léa Charpentier slowly ascended the rostrum in front of her fellow officers and hemmed.

"Are there any questions?" The tall French Woman with the long dark-yellow hair asked.

---

"A formidable enemy indeed," Satsuki pensively sighed as she saw the crowd in Omnimagi Stadium applaud and Kinue, Croix, and Chariot embrace one another.

"I know..." Nonon muttered in awe at what she just witnessed. "But this might be a good thing? This much power in the hands of one person is terrifying, but I think it is good that everyone is now aware of what has been happening in secret," The pinkette said as she and Satsuki squeezed each other's hand and her three fellow fufians looking on behind them. "Satsuki. You have no idea how amazing it is to be so intertwined with so many people around the world or to understand the people around you so well."

---

"If that is all, there rests me no more to say than to pass you Valentina's latest orders," Léa Charpentier concluded as she looked at every one of the REX members before her and saw the resolve and ruthless determination in their eyes.

"The appointed hour of departure has been altered! Now, when they are dazed and confused and are innocently celebrating will we strike. Assemble your units! We attack in ten minutes!"

---

End credits: Robert Miles - One & one

watch?v=3P9Dqv9yAhc