Free Sky

by shahanshah

In the cold darkness of interstellar space, beyond every known frontier of mankind, against the most terrible of enemies, the Goddess protects.

3. Greenhorn

"Why," Diana said, carefully shaping her lips around the one word. She stared at the man across from her, not moving her gaze, head titled slightly downwards in condescension.

"Why," she repeated.

Next to her, Christine coughed uncomfortably.

"Please stop," Yoshio said, grimacing. "I have explained my reasoning many times over."

Diana ran a hand through her hair. "Look. Reverse nepotism, wherein somebody uses their familial connections with figures of authority to fuck themselves as opposed to help themselves is just as bad as the normal kind. I mean, if you're exploiting your arbitrary advantages, you might as well do it intelligently."

"She has a point," Christine said.

Yoshio's face drooped, his eyes dropping to the floor. "You too?"

"I'm sorry," Christine said. "I understand your motivations—"

"Wait, fuck, you do?" Diana said, raising an eyebrow. "Because I sure as hell don't."

May, standing silently by the door, glanced furtively at the exit. As Diana continued to argue, she spontaneously began to fidget with her wrist. The black stripes of her uniform stood out from Yoshio's robes and the lighter tones of Diana and Christine's Armada tunics.

Christine set her jaw into a determined line. "Yoshio, it's a matter of safety. I'm not one to contradict the will of the Prophet-Queen, but from an objective standpoint, this is not the best idea."

"Not the best idea," Diana said, "the same way giving a recently concussed toddler the controls to a ship is 'not the best idea.'"

"Please—"

"What if you die?"

Silence met Diana's question. Looking around, she threw her hands in the air. "Hey! That was a serious question. This is the most dangerous place in the entire galaxy. There are, I don't know, three miasma fronts within two weeks' jump speed from this system. So let's say you get caught up in what will be an inevitable battle, and let's say you bite it. What then?"

"The people of the Hierocracy suffer a blow to their morale. Little in terms of functionality is lost."

Diana placed a hand over her face. "Yoshio, you are the brother of the ruler of humanity. Underselling yourself like that is fucking stupid."

"The Hierocracy will carry on after I am dead, if I die," Yoshio said. "I do not find the idea of shaping the direction of my life over the possibility of its death very appealing."

"How did you convince the Prophet-Queen, anyways?" Diana asked. "She seemed very level-headed, like the type of person who wouldn't be prone to being complicit in this idiocy."

"Officially, I am, through my presence, to apply political pressure on the rebels in the sector in order to better facilitate the defense of the Hierocracy's holdings."

"Yeah, and we both know that's bullshit," Diana said. "The actual reason?"

"She'd rather have a brother that can be proud of himself," Yoshio said, "rather than an invalid, wasting away in the gilded halls of Himmelsschloss, useful to nobody as the galaxy burns around him. I'd like to think that my sister loves me, and that she fears for my safety, but that her fear is outweighed by her respect for me."

Diana paused for a moment to digest Yoshio's words before feeling the irritation rush out of her. She couldn't stay angry for very long.

"Everyone on the ship shares the same risks as Yoshio," Christine said.

"And regardless of those risks," Yoshio said, "I have the Servant to guard me. Also, I heard that there was some hyper-competent magical girl on board who they said was pretty good at hitting things with a sword."

Christine blushed as the corners of Diana's mouth twitched. "Congratulations, Yoshio, you made a joke," she said, before glancing over Yoshio's shoulder to make eye contact with May. "I promise that we can be intelligent, don't worry. So, you'll be joining our pseudo-team?"

"Y-yeah," May said, jumping at the sudden attention.

Christine turned to examine May, eyes lingering over the Inquisitional decorations on her uniform. She seemed too polite to overtly treat May as a curious specimen, yet too curious to deny her intrigue. "You're Inquisition, right?"

Lifting a hand to her mouth, Diana had to stifle a snort at the entirely useless question. At the sudden interest in May's previous loyalties, May turned her face slightly away from Christine, her long bangs now obscuring portions of her face.

"Yes."

"How was it?" Christine asked.

As May continually fidgeted with her hands, crossing her arms defensively across her torso, Diana couldn't help but pity the girl somewhat. She had a small, slender frame, and even with Christine standing across the relatively spacious officer's lounge the difference in height and bulk was obvious. She felt sympathetically embarrassed at Christine's oblivious predation of May. Girls born into noble families and raised to become mahou shoujo never had to work their way through the normal channels of education, which, as Diana's experience within the military grew, occasionally became obvious in moments like these.

May's eyes darted between the floor and Christine's expectant gaze. It was hard to discern her emotions or thoughts through the hair covering her face. All Diana could tell with certainty was that she was uncomfortable.

"I don't know," she finally answered.

Christine furrowed her brow. "Uh, well, what did you do, how were the other magical girls, or did anything happen?" she asked, stumbling over her words a bit.

At Christine's insistent questioning, May shrugged. Diana was almost impressed at the motion. It was one of the most noncommittal, non-functional, uselessly ambiguous gestures she had ever seen. She briefly considered officially recording it as such within her mind for future reference. She also briefly considered vocalizing her thoughts.

Somehow, though, she had the inescapable feeling that acting as such would only turn out poorly and make her feel guilty.

"Why do you want to know so badly?"

Crossing her arms across her chest, Christine frowned. "I don't. I'm just curious."

Diana and Yoshio shared glances of concern and worry. The confrontational nature of the conversation quickly rendered both of them nervous.

"Well, what do you think happens in the Inquisition?" May asked. Her voice was soft, and to Diana, almost fragile, but the inherent sharpness of the words was inescapable. It was like shattered glass.

Guilt flashed across Christine's face just as fast as she tried to hide it. Diana almost wanted to stand up and protest the inevitability of the train wreck that was about to occur.

Steeling her jaw, Christine recovered. "You kill heretics."

"Well, there you go," May said. Diana noticed that she was practically picking at her hands by now. Her eyes circled around the room, setting on anything but Christine's face. "And why—"

A shadow passed over May's face, doubling the physical shadows cast by her hair. Her breathing became more rapid as the words caught in her throat. "Why would you care? Whatever happens in the Inquisition, why would someone with a family that can get her into the real military care? It's never going to happen to you."

Without saying anything more, May stalked out of the room. Christine made an abortive motion to follow her before Diana pulled on her sleeve to sit her back down.

Christine's eyes were pleading for vindication. "I was just asking—"

"Yeah," Diana said, "but we all need to learn when to shut up."

"It's of no consequence," Yoshio said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Christine nodded. "I'll apologize later."

"Still," Diana said, "that was pretty unnecessary on her part. Oh well. No matter where you are, I guess being socially inept remains that same, awkward constant. You two would know, right?"

Diana sniggered at the two simultaneous glares she received. "Oh, come on. Both of youspent all of your childhood in Himmelsschloss and belong to a noble family. If it came down to speaking about normal things, an AI could probably simulate better responses than you people."

Sighing, Yoshio shook his head. "Still," he said, "if May is going to accompany me, I'd like to know whatever events happened in the Inquisition that she doesn't want to talk about."

"It'd be a relatively simple matter to just ask one of the Inquisitional officers on board for a record," Christine said. "We have some right to know, I think."

"You guys are assuming that something did happen in the first place, aren't you?" Diana said. "She might just not enjoy having the details of her past pried into. Something might have happened before she joined the Inquisition, or maybe even before she contracted in the first place. I'm new to this business of being a magical girl, but I'm aware of the most basic trends. If you don't contract with the Incubators because it's part of the family practice or because of a religious calling, you contract because your life sucks and wishes go a long way in fixing that. Surrounded by two people who've come from the very top of humanity, along with me, who's pretty much the very definition of 'lucked out,' it'd make sense that she'd feel uncomfortable."

Diana paused to scratch at her head, ignoring the slightly bemused stare that Yoshio was giving her. To Christine's credit, she didn't look as lost. "Or maybe I'm just trying to fit in her into a convenient narrative so I don't have to actually speak with her to understand her. The point is that we should, in general, be smart about how we interact with her. I, personally, am not going to extend any helping hands that she doesn't want to take."

Diana glanced outside the lounge's view screen, at the flat, undifferentiated blackness of the space beyond, and the dull red sphere that was the moon they were orbiting. The celestial bodies seemed to stand still, suspended statically in the invisible firmament, incapable of ever being disturbed.

But Diana knew that on the holographic star maps projected on the bridge, a red dot that denoted an area of concentrated miasma was located within striking distance of the system, and that battle was at hand.

-x-

A couple hours later, Diana was sprawled against a hard, wooden chair in her personal quarters. Once again, she found herself sharing a room with Christine. In her hands rested a hot, steaming mug of hot chocolate, which Diana held close to her face, savoring the heat that radiated across her cheek. Energy was a scarce resource on a warship, and space was very cold.

Diana's eyes were glazed and unfocused as she idly blew air across the surface of her beverage. Practically, she knew that she was prepared to fight. As a trained magical girl, she would always have some idea of what to do. But instinctually, her lack of experience dug in at the back of her mind.

It was easier to drift off into semi-consciousness than it was to remain awake and alert, free to contemplate the prospect of the inevitable battle that was looming.

The materialized soul gem lying next to her on the desk pulsed with a gentle, green-blue light. Diana's mind, made drowsy by the hot chocolate, was occupied with thoughts of how good the warmth of the liquid felt against her throat, and how sweet it tasted.

On the Faithful Soldier, as opposed to the civilian setting of Himmelsschloss, Diana was surrounded by Armada personnel. In some specific contexts, the military was more religious than the Hierocracy that it served. The faith of the Hierocracy was diluted through the politics that government necessarily entailed. While there were no clergymen amongst the military to spread the word of the Goddess, and while doubt ran rampant through the soldiers who had to confront despair and evil face-to-face, the military was the only group in the right position to fully appreciate the power of the Goddess. As servants of the Hierocracy, the military was guided by divine mandate. While the Hierocracy was religion, the military was religion's will. Their cannons were the holy fire of the Goddess, and they named their capital ships after the five pillars.

As Diana walked through the halls of the ship, she could feel the attention of men and women, all of them more experienced than her, turn to examine her. They did not salute her, as they outranked her, but nobody could mistake the reverence in their eyes for anything else.

Being a coward had simply been removed from her list of viable options. If she fled with the hopes of a hundred billion souls still resting on her back, she would be absolute trash. Diana couldn't even think of a sarcastic way to frame it.

The sound of the door sliding open startled Diana into almost spilling her hot chocolate, making her gasp in surprise as the scalding liquid brushed against her fingers. A quiet squeal from the door answered Diana's own cry.

"May?"

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," May said, narrowly dodging the door as it slid shut again.

"They rarely do," Diana said, putting her hot chocolate down. "Do you want something?"

May took a deep breath. "I was looking for Lieutenant McDonnell."

Diana shrugged. "Well, I don't know where she is. It's obviously not here. Sorry. Why're you looking for her?"

"It's nothing."

"Oh. Well, this is the part where I just stop asking questions, right?"

There was a sharp intake of breath as May narrowed her eyes at Diana. "I d-don't really enjoy being made fun of."

Diana had not been expecting the hostile response. Although she wasn't sure, she was reasonably certain that being the Servant carried with it an implicit degree of unspoken authority, which May didn't seem to have many problems beyond pre-existing shyness with disrespecting. She took care not to act surprised, though. Letting May know that Diana's image of her was weak would essentially broadcast pity, and that was one insult Diana was unwilling to throw. "Look, I'm sorry. I was just curious. I can't pretend to have known Christine for very long, given that I've only been involved in this magical girl business since the war started. I guess if you're being generous you could call me her acquaintance, which hardly justifies me inquiring into her personal affairs. So I guess the point is that you don't have to answer if you don't want—"

"I'm going to apologize to her."

Diana blinked, her mouth closing as the momentum of her rambling speech died. "Are you?"

May squirmed against the wall. "Y-yes."

"She was asking pretty stupid questions. Why do you feel the need to apologize?"

Pressing her lips together, May shook her head. "That's not the point."

"I guess I'm more surprised because you seemed pretty pissed off when you were speaking to her."

May bowed her head. "I was."

"And you're specifically seeking her out to apologize not even twenty-four hours later?"

"I-I just want her to know that I don't hate her or anything. Because I don't," May said, her voice soft and slow. "Is that all right?"

Diana blinked again. "Yeah."

The obvious thing for her to say was, "I had you pegged wrong," but, to Diana, it would add nothing to the conversation besides the advertisement of her own ignorance.

May wasn't saying anything, but she wasn't leaving the room, either. Quickly looking for a solution, Diana blurted out the first thing that came to her mind: "I actually knew that you'd be transferring to escort Yoshio before we first met."

"I-I'm sorry?"

"Not you specifically, but the Prophet-Queen was talking about it. Maria D'Arco was specifically asking the Prophet-Queen for a transfer, so I guess it was important."

May's cheeks flushed. "S-she was?"

"Yeah. That's how I knew who you were when you got lost."

Even more blood rushed to May's face. "I-I'm sorry that I was such a bother that time."

Diana snorted. "Oh no, you got lost in what is actually the largest building in Himmelsschloss. It wasn't a problem."

"Oh," May said, regaining her composure. "That's, uh, good."

"Anyways," Diana said, "and let me preface this by saying that I honestly don't have a fucking clue what the answer to this question might be, what's it like in the Inquisition? You don't have to tell me anything that you don't want to."

May made eyes towards an empty chair. "May I sit?"

"Of course."

The chair didn't make a sound as May lowered her tiny body on it. "Before General D'Arco, the Inquisition was a terrible place to make friends. We recruited the vast majority of our magical girls from ethnic colonies, mostly because it's much easier for a girl from a Lyuidan settlement to understand the political workings of that settlement than it is for a girl who's spent her entire life being waited on in Himmelsschloss."

"So if everyone's from a different colony, you pretty much hated each other?"

"Yes. There was also the risk of the Inquisition's ultimate failure: corruption within the holy justice itself. Because practically nobody was from anyplace near Earth, the risk of heretical beliefs amongst the girls was that much higher. But it was just an excuse for us to be suspicious and hateful towards each other."

May's eyes were focused very firmly on the floor, and her voice lacked much intonation, like she was reciting from a textbook.

"And how did D'Arco change all of that?"

"General D'Arco," May said, "made the other Inquisitional Generals play nice. Nobody is quite sure how. Maybe you should ask her yourself?"

Diana rolled her eyes. "It would be easier to ask a fortune cookie. I met this other Inquisitional girl with General D'Arco back in Himmelsschloss. Uh, Julia, I think? Who is she?"

May nodded. "Julia is General D'Arco's right hand woman. The two of them are inseparable. I don't know how they met."

"Maybe I should ask her myself."

"Ha ha," May said, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards.

"Anyways," Diana said, "I'm fresh enough meat that you don't really have to worry about me having a clue about which prejudices are trending amongst Armada magical girls. And really, back in school, I didn't care who had family close or far away from Earth. Don't mistake it for me being some sort of fucking saint, though. I just didn't give enough of a shit about politics or cultural feuds."

"I think that generally makes people nicer."

"Well, I default to being a bitch to people that I've just met," Diana said, "so it balances out."

May was silent for some time as she played with the bangs covering her eyes. When she finally spoke, her voice was the most level that Diana had ever heard it. "Don't be so hard on yourself, okay?"

"I'm not hard on myself."

May shook her head. "People like you, or like the Prophet, are always too hard on themselves."

"You're comparing me with Yoshio? You think I'm anywhere near close to him? Have you heard that guy talk about himself?"

"No," May said, "but I can still tell. Nine times out of ten, he's carrying himself in that way. He wants to curl up like a pillbug. I don't think he deserves to feel like that. You don't either, Diana."

"Am I acting like a pillbug?"

May glanced back down to the floor. "I-I guess not. I'll go look for Lieutenant McDonnell, then."

Silently, May rose from her seat and headed towards the door. She was two, three paces away when Diana stood as well and said, "Hey."

She made sure that she was smiling at May. She didn't remember smiling at her when they first met, which, in retrospect, made her feel bad about herself. For a moment, Diana wondered whether or not guilt was a sufficient motivation for benevolence. Apart from guilt, what else was there? If benevolence did not make a person feel good, would there otherwise be any motive to do good? And if there was not, would guilt not be sufficient—

Diana hurriedly terminated her line of thought as she extended a hand. "Welcome to team Prophet."

After a moment of hesitation, May reciprocated the gesture. Her grasp on Diana's hand felt like slack rope. "Team Prophet?"

"Hell, all Christine and I've been doing for the couple weeks this war has lasted has been escorting Yoshio the fuck around. He goes to Earth, we go to Earth. We go to the middle of deep space to fight demonic horrors spawned from entirely new strains of miasma, which themselves are in turn borne from the deepest, darkest recesses of human suffering, hate, and despair? Whaddaya fucking know, Yoshio's right there with us, with some flimsy bullshit as an excuse."

At Diana's words, May's lips parted a fraction of an inch. Just as they were about to form words, though, her eyes darted away from Diana's face in indecision, and she closed her mouth.

"What is it?"

"I-it's nothing," May said. "Some Inquisitional business. You brought it up earlier."

Diana looked at May in confusion. "I did?"

"Yes. Yoshio's, um, you called it, er, his 'official purpose' is actually rather important. The heretics, I mean."

"What do you mean?"

"Er, the nearest fort planet is too far away to support a fleet in this frontier sector for very long. I think that the Armada wanted to build bases on Feraxis, the most developed planet in the outer sector, so that they'd be able to sustain a prolonged campaign in the area."

May frowned. "But, of course, the Armada can be, mm, dumb, so, uh, I have to go to them and say, 'By the way, huge swaths of Feraxis are under heretical control. Could you please give us some firepower to deal with them?' And I was really nice about it, too! But they said no. So General D'Arco was trying to get support for a campaign to get the heretics off Feraxis, but then the demons came and suddenly everyone was concerned that we were all going to die, so, yeah, now it turns out we really need to deal with the heretics."

May's hand crept nervously into her hair. "That, uh, make sense?"

"So," Diana said, "what does this have to do with Yoshio?"

"Ah," May said, her eyes widening a bit in surprise. "I'm—I'm not very sure. Prophet-Princes don't really have much of a precedent for stopping heretical movements."

Diana rolled his eyes. "You mean he can't do shit."

Discomfort radiated from May. "Eh, no, but please don't tell him I said that. I'm sure he wants very much to do something."

"Don't worry, I won't."

Slowly, the traces of a smile began to peek through May's face. "Well, then, it was nice talking to you in a, uh, less embarrassing context."

Diana laughed. "You too. See you later, then."

The door slid shut behind May. A second later, Diana planted her face in her hand.

Fuck, "Team Prophet" sounded so much cheesier in retrospect.

Grumbling under her breath, Diana took a sip of her now-lukewarm hot chocolate. The ship was still very cold.

-x-

It was later—how much later, Diana wasn't very sure, because she now measured time by waiting, in a metal box with no sun and a body that didn't necessarily need to sleep eight hours a day anymore, for the demons to come and the battle to begin—when Diana was looking for something to draw, maybe a viewport to the depths of outer space, or a bit of intricate machinery, when she ran into the Hearth member again.

"Yo!" a familiar voice behind Diana called out. Diana had been walking through one of the ship's many corridors. Some of them, dead-ends, had been designed just to confuse and trap potential boarders.

Diana turned around in surprise. Akira, an easy smile across her face, waved at Diana. She was taking disproportionately long strides towards her, like there were springs within her legs.

"Hey," Diana said, finding herself returning Akira's smile. "What're you doing here?"

"Same thing you are, Servant," Akira said, sticking a tongue out. "Killing demons. Well, I'm taking more of a backseat role, but do you think you guys would have a shot at waging war without the help of the poor neglected support characters?"

Diana snorted. "To be honest, you don't seem fitted to a background role."

"Well, too bad," Akira said. "So, I heard the Prophet-Prince is on this ship as well? Is that part of the reason why you're here?"

"Surprisingly, no," Diana said. "I'm pretty sure Yoshio was supposed to stay behind in Himmelsschloss. But lo and fucking behold, that idiot seems to have no qualms about putting his life into grave and mortal danger, and here he is. And here you are. Pretty big coincidence, isn't it?"

Akira gave a noncommittal shrug. "Who knows. I mean, you don't know anybody else aboard this ship, do you? Statistically, it's not that far-fetched, especially considering that this is the place to be if you want to kill demons."

"I suppose," Diana said. "Either way, it's good to see you here."

"Hey, you're being nice!"

"Piss off."

Akira laughed, throwing her head back as her shiny black hair played out behind her head. Grinning, she pushed Diana in the shoulder. "Hey, you're working with Christine, right?"

"Yeah. Do you know her?"

"Mm, sorta," Akira said. "We were part of the same training group."

"Wait—with D'Arco?"

"Yeah. It was pretty funny watching her and Christine argue," Akira said, chuckling. "I'm probably going to go over and catch up with her later."

"Cool," Diana said. "So, what do you do, exactly?"

In her free time, Diana had been doing research on how the Hierocracy's army operated. She had been promoted to a rank unbefitting her actual experience—she hadn't seen more than a day of combat yet she was a Lieutenant—so what the Hierocracy basic training videos had shown her wasn't anywhere near sufficient education. The majority of her efforts had been devoted to the Armada. Now she knew that normal humans dominated most bridge positions—except for the captaincy—gunnery positions, and a few specific combat roles, like snipers. Magical girls made the majority of elite combat teams, though there were a few normal humans scattered throughout the roster. Nearly all the Armada captains were magical girls: having a religious figure serve as your commander did wonders for morale. Also confirming what she had known all along, the Armada and the Inquisition had long-standing rivalries. Furthermore, the Armada was the most powerful body in the galaxy, capable of, by the estimates of military experts, collectively glassing every known habitable planet in existence while only meeting minimal existence.

She didn't know shit about the Hearth, though.

Akira smiled at Diana's questions. "You're interested?"

"Yeah. Science can be pretty cool."

Smiling even wider, Akira gave Diana a deep bow. "Thank you very much," she said. "Truth be told, not that many people care all that much about us."

"Hopefully, I am not 'most people.' That would be indescribably boring."

Akira threw an arm over Diana's shoulder. "So, you wanna see?"

"Go for it."

With a twirl, Akira spun Diana around and began to lead her through the depths of the ship. Akira supplied an incessant stream of trivia about the design specifications of the vessel as they walked deeper and deeper within the structure. The knowledge that the ship was only a destroyer was quite the humbling revelation. Diana had never seen a battleship in her life; the one that arrived to save Genesis had appeared hours after her escape. A destroyer was already big enough.

And, extrapolating from the sizes of Armada ships, how large were the demons? Mutations in the miasma were hardly unexpected, given their precedence. The War—the First War had been a miasma mutation vastly multiplying demon breeding rates while simultaneously allowing the miasma to affect the real world, thereby revealing the demons to ordinary people. Human military had quickly discovered that demon firepower uncannily mirrored the humans' own. So, that being the case—what did the largest demons look like now?

Eventually, they came across a series of checkpoints reinforced with what seemed to be very sturdy blast doors. After Akira confirmed her identity, the doors opened with the hum of unlocking invisible force fields.

"It appears that whatever you're showing me is serious business," Diana said, raising an eyebrow.

"The engine is indeed quite serious business. Guess what dies if it dies?"

Diana privately hoped that the engine's visuals instilled some sort of confidence within her. Having the destroyer's fate be put into some shitty-looking piece of machinery would be too depressing.

As they passed other Hearth members, Akira smiled, waved, and greeted each one by name. The most Diana had ever seen Christine give was a respectful nod. For a moment, she wondered if bad luck had conspired to make it so that Christine had never formed any lasting ties with her comrades, or if it was only inevitable.

Akira made an elaborate flourish as she cleared the final checkpoint and the doors slid open. The inside of the engine room had a couple engineers milling about, checking screens and switches. The engine itself sat in the middle of the room, taking up an absurd amount of space. To Diana, it looked to be a massive hunk of metal, parts of which occasionally shifted and clicked, seemingly assembled at random. The engine room itself was large enough, almost as voluminous as the cathedral back on Himmelsschloss.

"This is actually only one of several drives," Akira said. "Bending space-time, as it turns out, takes a lot of energy, more than one drive can supply. Whoulda thought, huh?"

Diana took in the entirety of the engine, each part seamlessly interlocking with another to what seemed to be absolutely no end. Shaking her head, she gestured at the machine. "Do you…get it?"

"Parts of it. Not all of it, of course. Thousands of Hearth scientists worked on developing that thing. Thousands more tested it, thousands more maintain it. Pretty cool, huh?"

Akira's voice had lost its usual bouncy lilt. Diana looked back at the hunk of metal. It was hard to imagine anyone being so emotionally invested in its existence. Yet here Akira was, and Diana wasn't one to argue with it.

For a moment, Diana imagined that she was outside the ship, just a set of eyes floating in the view from nowhere, looking down upon the vessel. Was there art in the machine? Was there beauty? How did the lifeless piece of metal move? To what reaches had it explored? Where was the beating heart?

For a moment, Diana's subconscious stopped thinking about the demons, and how they were coming for her. She didn't think about how scared she was of the path that she had found herself on. She was looking at cool shit with a friend, and the demons seemed so far away.

"Yeah, it is pretty awesome."

"Sometimes, the thing makes me feel small," Akira said. "Everybody and everything is just so far apart, and we need this engine to even have any hope of speaking to each other. And thousands of people worked on this thing, and if any one of them didn't—well, it wouldn't matter, someone else would just take their place."

What good was individualism when placed in the context of the vast reaches of the galaxy?

"I don't think anyone who's ever lived really mattered to more than a couple people, let alone thousands," Diana said. "Who cares about someone light years away that you'll never meet? I'd be lying to myself if I said that the abstract concept of a human life had any sort of true meaning to me. We don't deal well with scope. As far as the people and places that actually matter to us are concerned, we just get by as well as we can."

"You think so?"

"Yeah," Diana said, nodding.

"Do you think that I can matter to you?"

Diana thought about all the clichés regarding war and attachments. There existed countless stories of the jaded soldier, spurned by the cruel hand of fate, growing more and more averse to relationships that could be torn apart at any moment.

Well, Diana was still a rookie, wasn't she?

"You seem like you need friends," Akira said. "Most new girls do. When I first became a mahou shoujo, I was used to being number one as far as my parents were concerned. Joining and realizing the actual scope of the military—of how large the Hierocracy had really grown—was scary. Entire planets can burn in holy wars and people in Himmelsschloss forget about it after a week. One person hardly mattered. The Hearth kept me from the gloominess. I had friends, and I mattered to them, and they mattered to me."

"We," Diana said, realizing abruptly that she had stopped trying to line her words with wit or double meanings some time ago, "are friends, right?"

"Of course!" Akira said, smiling. "Unless you're seriously unpleasant or just trying real hard, becoming friends just sorta happens with magical girls. We stick together, right?"

Diana thought about Christine, and how, after one chance meeting on Genesis, the two of them had hardly been apart for more than a couple hours. Amongst the magical girls of the Hierocracy, there existed at least one single, unifying force. The Goddess tied very strong bonds.

Fear still burned like a glowing ember, full of dirty smoke, in the darkest, most primal portions of Diana's soul. But it didn't burn, and she could ignore it. She would have to try very hard to give much thought to fear when Akira was running her mouth off.

"Yeah," Diana said. "You're right."

-x-

Diana had to bite down hard on her lip to stop her from shouting in surprise when she finally noticed the Incubator walking next to her.

Okay, I want to make something super-clear, Diana thought, keeping the telepathy private between her and the Incubator. You announce your presence. I don't give a fuck if you understand emotions about as well as I understand advanced quantum physics, you still have to respect things like 'surprise'. Got it?

The Incubator tilted its plush doll head. I don't believe we've met.

Oh, for fuck's sake. Who are you, then?

I'm Kyubey!

Diana almost choked. Please tell me that I didn't just badmouth a historical icon.

Don't worry about it, Diana! Kyubey said, swishing its tail back and forth. I was just here to visit Yoshio-chan, anyways.

You know Yoshio?

I have since childhood. He's grown distant lately, though. I don't understand why.

It took an appreciable amount of willpower on Diana's part to stay her mental tongue. So, who was the Incubator I met on Genesis?

That was Mephis, Kyubey said. Mephis is new to the job. I'm helping out.

Uh-huh, Diana said. Where is Yoshio, anyways? I haven't seen him for a while.

Kyubey turned its head towards Diana, the ever-present smile of the Incubators staring her in the face. Just follow me.

Diana tried not to let the Incubator's seemingly omniscient knowledge of Yoshio's whereabouts perturb her. She failed.

When they found Yoshio, he was in an abandoned lounge room, hunched over a tactical holographic projection. Christine was sitting next to him, not looking at the map, but instead occasionally sneaking glances at Yoshio's concentrated expression.

"Hey," Diana said, her words pulling Yoshio out of his studies. As he turned to regard her, his eyes were immediately drawn to the Incubator at Diana's feet.

"Hello, Diana," he said, his voice strained. Then, he said using telepathy, Hello, Kyubey.

Long time no see, Yoshio-chan.

Indeed, Yoshio said. The expression on Yoshio's face unsettled Diana. It wasn't fierce or hostile; Yoshio's breathing remained level and his posture passive. But his eyes were hard and cold, communicating nothing but guardedness, like he was intentionally armoring himself against the Incubator.

I'd love to catch up, Kyubey said, though now seems to be an inappropriate time. Maybe later? I've always enjoyed speaking with you Prophets.

Yoshio gave one short, barely functional nod. Then, if you have nothing else to say—

I'll excuse myself. Without a tiny squeak, Kyubey turned around and walked out.

"He's a bit better at expressing himself than the other one," Diana said.

"Not 'he.' It," Yoshio said, narrowing his eyes at the spot where Kyubey had walked out.

"Fuck, what did Kyubey do to you?"

Yoshio shook his head. "Nothing that it would ever know. The mystery secretly drives the Incubators insane. It's quite amusing."

"…okay," Diana said. "I haven't got a fucking clue what you're talking about, but that's cool. What're you doing?"

"Thinking."

Christine shook her head. "He has been sitting like this for quite some time."

"Scouting drones have reported that the demons are closing in. I expect that you two will receive orders to prepare for combat within three hours."

Yoshio's back was stiff and rigid, and he spoke one step above a monotone, unnatural pauses finding their way in between his words. The glances that Christine was shooting his way grew concerned.

"You're obsessing over this, you know?" Diana said. "Welp, guess it's time to put another penny in the 'Yoshio does something unhealthy' jar."

Yoshio's robes rustled as his posture relaxed marginally. "My obsession is not without justification," he said, the words enunciated more naturally now. "In wondrous defiance of traditional doctrine, Lord Admiral is not in command of this fleet. I estimate it will take at least a month before the fort sectors become willing to give up their pocket fleets and command staff for the frontlines, less time if Himmelsschloss applies political and economic pressure."

Diana snorted. "Isn't imperial bureaucracy wonderful?"

"Say all you want," Christine said, shaking her head, "you didn't have to live in it like we did."

Shaking his head, Yoshio sighed. "At any rate, instead of being defended by any of the four largest fleets in the Hierocracy, all of which have built experience and tradition over the last century, we're stuck with a fleet comprising the defense garrisons of loyal planets in this sector. We're too fresh. Take the captain of this ship, for instance. Captain Chu-ko Liang is one of the few male captains in the Armada, which means that he had to work twice as hard to earn half the credit. He is clearly competent. But he has no experience. Competency isn't sufficient when the existence of the human race is on the line."

"I believe he deserves a chance," Christine said. "The Lord Admirals can't be everywhere at once. We need new blood, and eventually, someone will need to command the fifth dreadnought."

Yoshio turned to look at Christine. "That's a rather optimistic sentiment."

"Everybody aspires to be a hero and a martyr. Captain Liang probably does too."

Despite the uplifting diction, Diana noticed the sharp undercurrent in Christine's words. She remembered her confession about heroism, back on Earth. It had been easy to admit that reality wasn't amenable to legendary figures of justice when they had both been safe and comfortable. Now Diana just wanted to push the thoughts out of her head.

Yoshio thought for a moment before a wry, thin ghost of a smile found its way onto his face. "Ah," he said. "Captain Liang must be aware that I'm aboard the ship. If it is as you say, then Captain Liang does indeed have the burden of protecting the Prophet-Prince. This is his chance. Meanwhile, I suppose that I can sit here and serve as the precious cargo."

Leaning forwards, Christine crossed her arms. "Do you want to stay sitting down?"

Yoshio flinched. To Diana, his composure seemed to be made of eggshells. "No."

"Well, clearly not," Christine said. "You flew all the way out here, right? Truthfully, I first saw you as a burden. I had never met you, and the only things I knew of you were from a file. You were some package I had to deliver safely from Genesis—some spoiled brat who had ran away from home, and would fade into obscurity after the next generation of Prophets was born. And I was wrong. You picked up a weapon and fought. You have more motivation and determination than many magical girls I've met."

Diana had seen Christine smile before, but she had been teasing then. She didn't know that Christine could smile so softly. "It's very admirable. Either way, you should stop viewing yourself as the object of care. You can be more. Don't you trust the words on my lips?"

What remained of Yoshio's composure shattered as his cheeks flushed bright red. Diana had to suppress a snicker.

The PA system blared on, startling all of them. Messages were delivered individually to each person's communicator, giving them instructions.

Diana tensed as the voice in her head gave her a rendezvous point to meet at by 730, starship time. They were being deployed.

Yoshio's face was scrunched up in confusion. "They want me on the bridge."

At Diana and Christine's equally befuddled expressions, Yoshio shrugged. "Well, at least the ship is mobilizing sooner rather than later."

There was an abrupt silence as the three of them realized, at around the same time, that they were, for the first time since Genesis, facing a situation where they had a very non-negligible chance of dying. Yoshio opened and closed his mouth several times, each time choking on his words. Do you need a glass of water, Diana wanted to ask.

"Hey," she said. "We're going to be all right. That's what you said, back on Genesis."

Yoshio nodded quickly. "Thank you—" he said, looking at Christine first before hurriedly making eye contact with Diana, "—both."

"The same," Christine said, "Yoshio."

"I-I've made clear," Yoshio said, speaking too quickly and stumbling over his words, "about how I feel about my past life in Himmelsschloss. I made friends, yes, but that was in the context of a meaningless existence. You two mean much more to me than anything back in Himmelsschloss could, save for my two sisters. Do you know what I'm saying?"

Christine nodded. "We're comrades. It's natural."

"People I knew back at school grew kinda distant when I became the Servant," Diana said. "I wonder why. That means that you two are the closest non-familial contacts I have. Anyways, it'd suck if any of us died, so, um, let's not. Cool? Cool."

Diana bit her tongue to prevent herself from rambling any further. Fear was making her embarrass herself, which was only marginally less mortifying than the fear itself. Neither Christine nor Yoshio seemed to care much, though.

"Then may the Goddess protect you both," Yoshio said. "We should go."

As Diana glanced at Christine, she saw the tiny worm of sadness crawl its way into her eyes. Both girls knew, but Diana was trying her best to ignore, that no matter what they said, what would happen was another matter entirely.

If she died with friends, the only difference was that she would be less miserable, but still dead.

No. The scripture says that you are the Servant of the Goddess, avatar of her holy will, manifestation of her divine might, herald of her coming salvation.

The words came to Diana's head easily. She had read the scripture before, and the words had been buried under memory before being dragged back out to the surface.

"Good-bye, Yoshio," Christine said.

Yoshio's back stiffened. With his left hand, he reached over to his right and fidgeted with his ring. The ring, Diana remembered, had served to dispel her doubts about Yoshio. "We'll meet after the battle is finished. Until then, farewell."

"See ya," Diana said.

As Diana watched Yoshio turn and leave, she couldn't help but appreciate that this was one of those times when Yoshio's back was straight, and his elbows not bent to shield his body from imaginary foes.

-x-

May started in surprise as she saw Christine enter their rendezvous point with Diana. Blushing faintly, she locked eyes with Christine and opened her mouth as if to speak before being seized with trepidation and clamping her lips back together. Christine gave her a strange look in response, which only made her blush harder. From the awkward exchange, Diana could only surmise that May hadn't had the opportunity to apologize yet.

"I'm surprised to see you here," Christine said. "Does the Inquisition have business in frontline combat against demons?"

After hesitating for a moment, May gave a curt nod. "Y-yes. General D'Arco wants intelligence for the intelligence agency."

"Oh," Christine said. "All right, then."

There were other magical girls gathered as well, most of them seemingly well-acquainted with each other. Diana had exchanged pleasantries sprinkled with a bit of snide commentary with a few of them. The snide commentary had been mostly (all) on her part. A few of the girls were surprised to see the Servant, the mighty religious figure, so casual. Diana knew that at least part of the informality was staged on her own part, but a larger factor was that she simply had no other idea what to do.

The briefing was quick and impersonal. Yoshio had been right. The assembly of this fleet had been a recent development, and command structures were still being put into place. The magical girls might have known each other, but they certainly weren't used to fighting together in a protracted campaign.

They waited there for hours. Eventually Diana took to idly staring off into space and fidgeting. With the way the time spent waiting was weighing down upon her mind, she couldn't think clearly. She recognized the itch in her hands as some childish attention-deficient urge, but there was no paper and pencil to occupy her fingers with, nor anything to sketch. Watching May periodically look up at Christine before shying away didn't help matters.

For a moment, Diana felt a flash of envy for the religious icons of centuries past. The heroes of legends only had to kill demons. Diana still had to kill demons, but now she had to do it in an institution of war.

When the order finally came, the assembled magical girls herded themselves forwards into their boarding crafts. There was much less talking now.

"Time to transform," Christine whispered.

A kaleidoscope of light exploded across the boarding craft, red and blue and gold and green to contrast with the enemy, pale riders atop pale horses, having hurtled light-years through the depths of space for the specific purpose of mankind's destruction.

Out of curiosity, Diana looked across from her to examine May's costume. Tattered, gray cloth comprised most of her clothing. An oversized hood covered most of May's face, which, Diana reflected, was somewhat predictable. She carried a sickle, with a long chain attached to the end, lightly in her hand. Diana didn't know if she was imagining things, but the gray soul gem embedded on the back of May's hood seemed to swirl with the vaguest hint of angry darkness. With a tiny twinge of apprehension, she remembered what Christine had said about Inquisition girls: they were "unstable."

"Hey," Diana whispered, leaning in close to Christine. "You've fought demons before Genesis, right?"

Christine snorted. "Yes. Containment breaches, uncontrolled miasma, minor mutations, outbreaks in rebel regions that don't have the religious infrastructure to control the miasma—didn't you do research?"

"Not gonna lie, I mostly want to hear the words."

"Armada magical girls," Christine said, "would die with the Goddess in their heart and her name on their lips without hesitation. We all know what we're doing. You don't have anything to worry about."

Diana breathed out. "Right."

The ship began to hum with the sound of the laser cannons firing. At the opening notes of the battle, the magical girls exchanged looks, some anticipatory, some fearful.

A green light flashed at the front of the boarding craft. Magical girls began strapping themselves into their seats. Thankfully, accompanying destroyers provided fairly adequate cover for the ships responsible for delivering the landing crafts, so the issue of landing was not very dangerous, especially considering that getting within range to deploy boarders was a matter of a blitz run, using ships with extremely high engine to body ratios in order to achieve greater acceleration for a shorter period of time than the generally faster battleships. Boarding was cost-effective: using small ships, only a couple thousand mahou shoujo, and liberal application of magic and antimatter charges, an admiral deploying his boarders competently could disable entire capitol ships in a matter of thirty minutes.

The humming of the laser cannons faded as their boarding craft was hurled from their home ship. For a few minutes, there was nothing but dead silence. Not even the girls were speaking.

Sudden acceleration shook the craft. They had made touchdown. The light flashed red. Equipment hissed and retracted as the girls left their seats.

The commanding magical girl, a veteran of a massive rebel assault that had occurred in some fort world a decade ago, spoke into their minds as the magical girls lined up at the entrance.

The Servant goes in front, she said.

Diana felt too numb to even protest as she moved to the front of the craft.

On my mark. Three—two—one—mark!

The doors hissed open.

Diana began operating mostly on instinct, because that had proven to be the most efficacious way of deterring paralyzing terror in the past. With a flash of light, she extended her wings. Her bow was already drawn, and with a satisfying twang, the first demon she saw exploded into miasma and grief cubes.

It was only then that Diana registered, in the parts of her mind that weren't occupied with combat, where exactly she was. They had, quite literally, driven into the belly of the beast. Or the thigh. Or the forearm—nobody could really tell. And apparently, the insides of mutated starship-demons were made of a creamy, swirling mixture, from which arms and fingers and faces occasionally emerged.

Diana felt nauseous. She didn't react to the demon in her peripheral vision firing its laser in time and gave a tiny yelp as it clipped her in the shoulder. She downed the demon with an arrow a second later.

Careful, rookie, someone warned her. Diana's thoughts were occupied too heavily with her heavy breathing, the warm feeling in her arm, and the shooting pain in her shoulder for her to respond.

The remainder of the battle was occupied by a frantic dash, coordinated by magical girls on the ground and occasional direction from the fleet, to their various targets. Some of it was guesswork, and everyone had the unspoken fear that they would arrive at their target and find absolutely nothing, but the mutated demons followed human ship architecture pretty closely.

Diana wondered if, she became afraid enough, she would just go insane and enter some sort of berserk rage. It never happened. She was too busy trying to keep her arm from shaking as she aimed her bow to take the time needed to descend into insanity. Really, insanity would be too easy—some petty excuse for someone who was actually a coward to easily commit acts of brutal violence.

For now, she was fine just running on adrenaline and survival instinct. At least she didn't have to care about the things that she was killing. Diana felt a pang of empathy for May.

Eventually, they found what the engineers back on the Faithful Soldier thought was the engine, which, to the surprise of very few magical girls, turned out to be a massive, beating heart. They had killed their way through swaths of demons, risking their lives in one ludicrously dangerous situation after another—flanking maneuvers, breaking out of encirclements, and flashy demonstrations of magical girl firepower.

Around half a dozen magical girls, herself, Christine, and May included, approached the "engine" cautiously. While they had just cleared the room out, and piles of demon corpses slowly dissolving into miasma littered the area, everyone remained on edge. As Diana stared at it, unbidden images of the hypothetical world where mankind fell to the vast demon forces flashed through her mind. These were monsters, driven by otherworldly forces, bent on destroying mankind, and even if humans could find company with each other, it was alone in the company of the stars.

Are we waiting for something? May asked. Diana shot her a quick glance. Her intonation was stronger and her voice more confident than she had ever heard May before. It was strange. The fact that May's face was half concealed by her hood only unsettled Diana further. Who the hell got more stable in a place like this?

One of the Armada girls shot May a dirty look. There's no need to be hasty.

They spent a few minutes setting up the charges while the rest of the girls stood guard.

Diana.

Turning around, Diana saw May looking at her, the same expression as before still painted across her face. Yeah?

The mask across May's face wavered slightly. A-are you okay?

Diana didn't say anything. For the past couple minutes, her eyes had adopted the pattern of scanning the entrance hallway, back and forth, and she had absolutely no intention of breaking her newfound habit without very good reason.

I-it doesn't really get easier, May said. If you're afraid, you try confronting it, but that doesn't work, or at least, it happens too slowly. You try not being ashamed of it, but that doesn't change the fact that the fear is still there. You just have to d-deal with it.

Well, that makes me feel better.

I'm sorry.

Diana sighed. Don't be.

The girls responsible for setting up the charges stepped away from the engine. We're done. Let's get out of here.

The instant the girl finished speaking, the roof of the engine room caved in with a mighty roar. Miasma poured forth from the opening like water rushing into a leaking ship. Lasers shot through the room, lacerating one girl into pieces before a final shot destroyed the soul gem in an almost merciful gesture.

As Diana watched the girl die, so fast that she wasn't even sure that it had happened—but she was sure that she would have plenty of time to reflect on it later—she heard a hum, then a throb, then a rhythm that pulsed through the miasma. It was a voice, and its tongue had the capacity for only one word: kill.

Dozens of multi-armed giants streamed forth from the hole in the ceiling, rushing forwards to engage the magical girls. Without thinking, for thinking was too expensive for her to afford, Diana began rapidly firing arrows, her arms moving automatically as if machines. She cycled through the same actions: reach back, draw arrow, slide back, release. Reach back, draw arrow, slide back, release.

May spun like a top, scythe whirring through the miasma and drawing huge cuts across the demons as she danced her way through the mob. As a demon laser made to slice through her legs, she jumped in the air, scythe cutting through the demon now beneath her as she performed a backflip, before finally landing with the now-disintegrating remains of her enemy at her back.

Get back to our craft! Christine shouted. One of the girls' screams made her turn around. Standing over the corpse of one of the magical girls was a demon, smaller than the others. Unlike the other demons, this one held a weapon in its hand: an ornate broadsword. Its robes were covered with chitinous armor. Next to it, another one of its kind emerged from the miasma.

Christine eyed the rest of the giants that were beginning to crowd the exit, cutting the magical girls off. Diana, clear the way out.

Mouth dry, Diana's eyes scanned across the two demons that were beginning to advance on Christine. She had neither the willpower nor the time to protest. Right.

She loosed a stream of arrows, each one moving too impossibly fast for the human eye, each one hitting a demon with a bone-rattling boom, each one resulting in another exploded demon. The demons, noticing the Servant in their midst, concentrated their fire. They seemed to have mostly gotten over their initial fear of her.

Diana bitterly reflected on the inequity of that.

With a flash of light, she stretched her wings out and took to the air, desperately swerving out of the way of each laser that came her way. As she landed at the demons' feet, one of them lunged towards her, raising a hand as if she was a bug that the demon was going to squash. She notched an arrow, fired it point blank, and watched as the force of impact tore the demon open like a banana split.

The two sword-wielding demons leaped towards Christine. Out of the corner of her eye, Diana noted the strange way Christine was holding her sword: she grasped the sword at two points, one at the hilt, and with her other hand, near the tip of the blade, almost as if it was a polearm rather than a sword.

The first demon's wild swing glanced harmlessly off Christine's armor. As the demon reeled forwards, out of balance, Christine reached forwards and ducked low, pressing her sword against the demon's knee. With one swift upward motion, Christine used her leverage against the demon's leg to uproot it and send it reeling backwards. It fell to the ground, prone. Christine's eyes immediately turned to her next opponent.

The other demon came forwards more cautiously, but Christine was still faster. Metal clanked against metal as the two warriors of steel clashed. With a sickening crunch, Christine brought her sword rocketing upwards and slammed the tip of Christine's cross-guard against the demon's face. One quick stab to the throat later, and the demon was dead. Christine turned around to meet the first demon, still struggling to stand up. Almost casually, she brought her sword to the demon's helmet and slid it through an eye slit.

Come on, let's go! Christine shouted. The demons were beginning to disperse.

Diana didn't waste any more time. Killing another demon, she turned to the surviving magical girls. Exit's here.

As the last magical girl fled the engine room and was an appreciable distance away, a flash of light shone from the doors marked the detonation of the charges. Most of the demons that had been pursuing the girls were incinerated.

Diana's eyes glanced over the girls who came out and tried not to remember that more had gone in.

Extraction's coming, Christine said. We're getting out of here.

The journey back was mostly uneventful. As the remains of demons littered the area, the girls took whatever opportunity they could to stock up on grief cubes. Supplies, plentiful at the beginning of the mission, had run out rather quickly over the course of the hellish hour.

Damn animals, one of the girls said, picking up a few grief cubes off the ground. They don't even think. Shouldn't we have outgrown our natural predators thousands of years ago?

Diana bit her lips as a tingle ran through her spine. Nobody answered the girl.

Some of the miasma was gathering once more, to Diana's apprehension. If it became dense enough, more demons could spawn.

A bolt of light shot out from the fog, speeding towards Christine's head. It would have hit her if a robed hand hadn't forced her down an instant before. May's gleaming sickle slashed once, twice, and then the hidden demon died as the miasma dispersed.

Christine stared at the spot where the demon had been. Thank you.

May, still walking resolutely forwards, didn't say anything.

"Hey," Christine said, placing a hand on May's shoulders. The other magical girls were too busy holding their breath to say anything. "May."

"What?"

Christine tossed her a grief cube.

"Do you think I need one?"

"Yes. Take it."

After squaring her shoulders and staring back at Christine for a couple seconds, May capitulated. Her soul gem disappeared from her hood and reappeared in her hand. The two trinkets, May's soul and the grief cube, clinked together as she closed her fist.

Several seconds passed in silence as the magical girls continued to make their way back to extraction.

I-I'm sorry, May said, her shoulders slumping as tension was released from then. She brushed the bangs out of her face as she turned to look at Christine. It was Diana's first unobstructed view of May's face. It didn't carry very much emotion, not, it seemed, for lack of trying, but only because it was too tired to form the expressions.

Christine shook her head. Don't be.

I'm sorry that we're both associated with the Prophet-Prince. Otherwise you wouldn't have to spend time with me. I don't think I'm very pleasant to be around. Diana had said the same words sarcastically enough times to tell when someone was being sincere.

Christine's eyebrows drew together. It was the darkest Diana had ever seen Christine look. You need to stop doing that.

W-what? In the absence of demons to fight, May's voice was once again faltering.

It's the worst thing in the world to hear someone hate themselves. All it does is remind me how impossible it is for anybody to ever help them, so I hate hearing it.

May's eyes dropped to the ground. I'll try to stop.

Diana picked a grief cube off the ground, placed it on the tip of her thumb, and flicked it at the back of May's head, catching the cube off the rebound.

"Hey!"

Diana remembered the words: We are friends, right?

"I'm reserving the right to flick things at you whenever you get excessively gloomy. I mean, here we are. We're stuck in some eldritch demon thing's corpse, surrounded by the remains of hundreds of fallen enemies. It's a beautiful sight, isn't it?"

May's brought a hand to her face.

"Hey, I'm sorry that I'm not very funny."

May shook her head. Don't be.

That, Christine said, speaking privately to Diana, was hardly more intelligent than anything Yoshio and I have ever said to her.

Yeah, yeah, Diana responded. Oh—oh, shit.

They had made their way to their extraction point, and the comforting presence of absolutely nothing greeted them.

"Extraction, where are you?" Christine asked, speaking into her communicator.

A familiar voice answered her: "Stand-by. There have been a few complications."

Diana blinked. "Please tell me that I am hallucinating. I don't even care about the fucking extraction. We can just fucking sit here until the end of time for all I care. Please tell me that I am not hearing Yoshio's voice."

There was an audible clicking noise as Christine ground her teeth together. "Yoshio, I want to know why you are answering me." The rest of the girls were giving her blank, confused looks.

A different voice came onto the line. "The Prophet-Prince is present on my invitation. Further explanation will be available later. Until then, standby, Lieutenant McDonnell. Everything is under control."

Diana buried her face in her hands. "I'm sure that's why they put a teenaged head of state in the military installation, and then got him on the bridge—because everything is under fucking control. Holy shit."

"I-I'm sure Yoshio knows what he's doing," May said.

"Then you don't know him well enough!" Diana said. "He is exactly the kind of moron who places himself in this kind of shitty hellhole situation when he does not actually have to!"

Suddenly, her vision blurred. Every single injury she had incurred over the course of the battle now seemed to have a personal vendetta against her. Diana knew that she was better than that. All magical girls were made with some talent, and Diana had certainly not been cheated. But she had been careless, and paralyzed when she shouldn't have been. All those times when she had been desperate, she hadn't been competent, and now she was paying the price. She counted herself lucky that her incompetence hadn't managed to let anyone else get hurt.

Stupidity felt like a heavy weight placed on her shoulders. Having to try to accept that she had not been the most effective magical girl wasn't anything but degrading.

"I need grief cubes."

Without inquiring any further, Christine tossed her some. Grief cube distribution in the military remained on a strictly professional basis as a matter of protocol.

The Goddess was up in her Heaven, and, as Diana felt the fatigue but not the underlying self-disappointment seep away, she reflected that there was not a single damn thing she could personally do from up there about anything. Faith in her but not her actual presence was all that remained to cleanse despair—that, and empty grief cubes.

-x-

(not too proud to beg; reviews are appreciated)