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The End of the Circus: A Tale of the Yizibajohei
Girls of the Crystal: Record of the Crystal II or The Mystery of the Rumours
by Regina Magia
C&C by Fred Herriot and Rose Ash
A side story to The End of the Circle: A Tale of the Yizibajohei, by Fred Herriot
Based on characters and situations from Mahō Sensei Negima, written by Akamatsu Ken; Kantai Collection, created by Kadokawa Games; Harry Potter, written by Joanna K. Rowling; Urusei Yatsura, created by Takahashi Rumiko; Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magika, created by Urobuchi Gen, Shaft and Aniplex; and normalman, created by Jim Valentino.
Mitakihara, the last Sunday of November in 2012, two hours before supper...
"I got in touch with some of my recruits, and asked them to keep an eye out for anything potentially related to puella magi, eldritch witches and/or the Incubators," Tamaki Iroha began as she faced the gathering of would-be magical girls in her family home. "Several reported that rumours are somehow becoming reality. Not just any rumours either."
The people seated and standing in the room exchanged looks. "What type of rumours are we talking about, Iroha-sensei?" Kanami Madoka wondered, making the pink-haired healer blush at being given that title.
"Sometime ago, I ran into a couple of monsters whom I thought were eldritch...yet but didn't drop any grief seeds, Madoka-chan," Nanami Yachiyo explained. To the delight of the others in the room, the just-Gifted high-level FISS looked quite refreshed after her bout in the Battlezone not far from Nimiro earlier in the day. "Rumours have it now that there are entities who exist to make actual rumours physically real, not to mention do everything in their power to ensure they continue to exist. If someone meets the conditions of the rumour — or prevent its climax scene — they wind up attacked."
As She Who Demolishes Castles blushed at her mind's adjusting to the speech patterns of the Children of the Forge — complete with using local idioms — she then blinked as supportive hands squeezed her shoulders. Looking to her left and right behind her, she nodded as her new friend Zahrā' al-Ḥusayn and the transformed SBM al-Qahir (née HMS Myngs) now known as Lyonne Cazalet gave her supportive looks. The presence of the reborn first of the Zephyr-class fleet destroyers from the Second World War had been directly mandated by President Muḥammad Mursī himself after he had been briefed on Lyonne's mission to escort several would-be puella magi to the World of the Forge to be Gifted. Grateful for both girls' presence, Yachiyo turned back as Tomoe Mami seemed to trill. "Sounds like someone misusing magic to me," the Self-Moulder of the Pure Chaos concluded.
Akino Kaede put up her hand. "While I was looking for eldritch witches, I heard a rumour that if you end a friendship, then apologize afterwards, a monster makes you literally disappear. Since I've been fighting with Rena..."
People looked at the red-haired girl who had been located with Yachiyo in Kamihama. "Who's Rena?" Akemi Homura asked.
"Minami Rena," Togame Momoko explained. "Another magical girl. A puella magi, I mean."
"Maybe if we find her, she can help us shed some light on the mystery," Iroha proposed.
"You do that," Mami affirmed before she pulled up her PAA to project a hologram for the others to see. "Meantime, I've heard there's a girl named Yakumo Mitama; she's based outside Kamihama," she explained as others in the room keyed in their own devices so they would have a visual record of the pretty azure-haired woman. "According to what's been reported on her by groups such as the Hokumagun, she's said to have the ability to literally ENHANCE the magical powers of a puella magi. To get such a 'boost', Mitama-san accepts grief seeds in payment." Noting those people around her who had been eldritch witches before their Giftings visibly wince — having experienced their other-selves' use such devices to keep their own soul gems clean in the past, to be traded around like THAT really hit them the wrong way — the effective leader of the anti-Incubator movement on Earth crossed her arms. "She's bound to know something. If we're lucky, we may be able to recruit her."
Nods answered her from all around...
Kamihama, the Trident Arcade, an hour after supper...
Minami Rena always had a problem with her very sense of self.
Partially propelled by bullying by peers as she entered into adolescence and partially because she often found that all the moronic and silly issues that weighed down on young teenagers often simply weren't worth the energy expended to deal with same, the silver-haired tomboyish girl soon became a loner. Fortunately in her eyes, meeting the likes of Kyūbē had done much for uplifting her spirits. Oh, sure, it sucked big time to be forced to hunt eldritch witches who were born from the dark sides of puella magi like herself to ensure her soul gem remained clear of despair — she sure as hell didn't want to become one of those awful dark creatures since she found it quite hard to believe that she personally would die if the witch bound to her soul gem actually got loose — but she had no issues dealing with all the strange things she had to confront after her empowerment.
But right now, it was time to relax and dance...
As the fast-paced sounds of 888 thundered through the speakers of the DDR machine she had taken over this quiet night at her favourite arcade, Rena didn't notice the small group of newcomers — two of which, clearly gaijin both, were wearing Islamic head scarves of all things! — having walked into the Trident Arcade; even if she normally did her best to keep her eyes open when it came to potential threats, now was set aside for "down time" so she could loose herself in music.
As the DJ Technorch melody first released via DDR Universe 3 four years ago reached its climax drum roll, a hand tapped her shoulder, making Rena jolt before she turned to gaze into the smiling face of Akino Kaede.
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
Then...
A gargled squeak escaped the tomboyish girl as she leapt off the dance pads, then raced for the front door, such causing Kaede and her companions to awk with surprise before they moved to pursue. "Rena! Wait!" the redhead cried out.
"What the bloody hell's the matter with her?!" Lyonne Cazalet demanded, her Tyneside accent coming out strong.
"Something about Kaede scared her!" Zahrā' al-Ḥusayn advised.
The chain of running people soon spun into a convenient alley. "Hey! Stop, Rena-san! Is this about the Rumour?!" Tamaki Iroha shouted as the target of their pursuit turned to face them on midway between two streets.
"Who the hell are you people?!" the silver-haired magical girl demanded as she allowed her clothes to morph into her fighting costume, her hands immediately grasping her magical trident.
Seeing that she was prepared to fight, the Mobile Healer held up her hands in a show of peace. "I'm Iroha," she introduced herself, then waved to her companions. "You know Kaede already. That's Yachiyo and Momoko. Our friends from Egypt are Zahrā' and Lyonne." Sensing the other woman blink, surprised to hear that people from THAT country were here in Japan of all places, the pink-haired touch-healer waved her down. "Look, if you're worried about the Rumour, you don't have to be..."
Rena snapped to an en garde position with her weapon. "I'm not! It's only just a Rumour...!"
Everyone then blinked as an opaque barrier suddenly forced between the tomboy and her would-be pursuers. Automatically, Iroha, Lyonne, Zahrā' and Nanami Yachiyo allowed their clothing to morph into their battlesuits, such making Rena grimace with surprise before she saw the weird-looking number-and-character sigil on the reborn destroyer's thighs. "Hey! You're not a puella magi...!" she exclaimed before focusing on the face of the reborn SBM al-Qahir, with its mixture of northern European and Middle Eastern features. She then noted Lyonne's ship's crest over her cleavage, which displayed the central badge of the Egyptian Navy over a circle of ship's rope, the image contained within said circle displaying the bright sun-and-mosque that served as her namesake city's public emblem. "A shipgirl?! Since when do shipgirls get involved with people like us?!"
They all then noted the energy separating Rena from her fellow puella magi morphing into the shape of a ghostly staircase, such having a girl composed totally of shadows at the upper landing. "Sacred Allāh have mercy..." Lyonne hissed.
"Relax, Rena-san," Iroha said while bracing herself. "We're on your side no matter what. Still, if we want to take this thing out, we'll have to work together. Minna, ready?!" she demanded as she glanced at her fellow metahumans.
Zahrā' telekinetically drew up all the dirt, gravel and anything else loose that could help in the fight, especially when it came to ensuring no innocent person would stumble onto this scene. Beside her, Lyonne summoned her force projection powers; beyond the capabilities which she gained from her first-generation battle doll "hull", the Victorious Maiden of the Red Sea, Musekrote ("al-Qahir"), was a combined pyrokinetic/meteorkinetic who could devastate whole city blocks with either hot winds or firestorm-level flames. Despite her going "standard" — as shipgirls worldwide called using their new bodies' basic combination FISS/energy blast abilities — the sheer level of power she commanded was enough to make the Rumour tense...
...before it created a space warp to get clear. "After that thing!" Iroha screamed.
Everyone dived through said hole in space-time...
...to find themselves on the shoreline of the East Sea some distance from Kamihama!
"Nice!" Rena whooped in anticipation as she charged at her target, using her trident to vault herself into the air and land a physical blow on the shadow girl which had to be where the central mind of her target was located.
While she was soon joined by Togame Momoko — who herself concentrated on hacking the stairwell with her sword — the Twister of the Dunes drew upon the long beach's worth of sand and small pebbles to form a physical barrier in case some fool got in the way. Lyonne leapt into the sky, bolts of energy approximating her old Vickers Armstrong QF 2-pounder Mark VIII "pom-pom" autocannons to churn up the ground in front of her new friends in a type of creeping barrage first perfected by the Canadian Corps at Vimy Ridge on Easter Sunday in 1917. Such was enough to shed some elements of the "stairwell" leading to Rena's target, enough for Iroha to reach with her hands to disintegrate; like other touch-healers, the pink-haired native of Kurume had many lifetimes' experience in dealing with the ever-present danger of non-corporeal "ghosts" on Yiziba. Once she had a clear path to target thanks to the reborn destroyer, Yachiyo quickly got to the base of the stairway, her hands diving into the exposed bedrock under the blasted-clear sand to begin churning it up, hopefully to knock the Rumour off-balance.
Meanwhile, Kaede was quick to note what the Mobile Healer was doing as Rena and Momoko continued to bash and hack away at the shadow girl, then she used her shepherd's staff-like weapon to pull more of the stairwell apart for Iroha to destroy with her powers. As she did this, she felt a chill surge up from deep within her soul gem, a cackle that was mixed with both anticipation and dread sounding off deep in her mind. Shuddering as she realized that her other-self Zola — who had been suppressed into a near-comatose state thanks to the power of the Infinite Wave over two days before — was moving to draw in on what power she could seize from the Rumour to break clear of her soul gem and live as her own person, Kaede bit back a panicked cry.
No! She wasn't going to let her fear lead to despair...!
Like...!
Like...
Oh, Kami-sama...
As the dark sky overhead seemed to glow with otherworldly power, the red-haired magical girl's body started to glow while memories of a truly ALIEN nature poured into Kaede's very mind. Deep in her soul gem, Zola shrieked with understandable terror as the ancient might of the Great Crystal of Power began reaching into her other-self's body...
«Egyptian destroyer al-Qahir, this is Japanese cruiser Sendai! What's going on?!» a woman's voice echoed over the scene.
"Sorry to disturb your night patrol, Captain Hashimoto!" Lyonne responded as she moved in a counter-clockwise dimension to continue her assault; even if Iroha was having a considerable level of success in disintegrating the Rumour's stairwell, said being was moving to siphon off more power to keep its core self intact so it could deal with the struggling Rena. "Situation is Papa-Mike-Romeo! Ladies Medic, Siege Breaker and Desert Rose are on scene with myself, plus three non-Gifted girls..."
Kaede hissed as memories of landslides at a scale she could never imagine — and she was Japanese, native to a nation which had to deal with devastating earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on a frighteningly frequent basis — flooded her mind as her body seemed to sing with raw, sheer power, the loose sand ground under her feet beginning to churn.
"...though by the looks of it, the Conservator's being quite the helpful chap and lending one of the non-Gifted a hand!"
«Yasen-baka, this is Tenryū! DESDIV Six is on its way from Hakodate to help al-Qahir! Keep monitoring things...!»
Dropping her staff, Kaede moaned while her other-self wailed frightfully as her whole body started to glow...
"Taeim letam...!"
«Don't worry, Lyonne-chan! We'll be there with some of Shirayuki-chan's snacks for the new girl, nanodesu!»
...then she felt the very earth under her feet reach out to embrace her as her clothes burned away...
"Appreciated, Inoue...!"
...and as her very soul was yanked back where it properly belonged — though there had been a clean break with the part of her that had become Zola, the hapless witch screaming until she herself felt the protective embrace of the living spirit of the Seeker's Forge — a beautiful mahogany-shaded jumpsuit with marmalade-orange belt and boots formed around her.
"...lucky thing our PAAs record these events! Never bloody hell get enough of seeing this...!"
Nesu...TEMBUO!
As the crimson-haired geokinetic now to be known on Yiziba as the Shaking Geyser, Tembuo ("Yellowstone"), emerged from the nearly-blinding light of the Gifting, her new battlesuit finished forming, displaying her battle line's common sigil of a cracked patch of ground over her cleavage. Meanwhile, the dropped staff she had used as a magical girl glowed before bands of energy-charged mesonium formed around the aged wood, such flooding the device to purge whatever links it might still have to the Incubator that had empowered Kaede in the first place...to say anything of whatever group of Sidines fed upon whatever torrents of despair that the nature-lover had unknowingly gathered for the race of empathic vampires nearly half a galaxy away.
"GET CLEAR!" Kaede bellowed, her hand reaching out to telekinetically draw her staff to her.
Yachiyo leapt into the air to snare Momoko and Rena, then dodged away from the shadow girl as Lyonne shifted herself in front of She Who Demolishes Castles, the energy pouring out of her hands now approximating her main battery of QF 4.7 inch Mark IX dual purpose cannons. As Zahrā' reached out with a "hand" of sand and stone to snare the glowing soul-gem now containing the living spirit of her sister eldritch witch, Kaede spun her staff like a whirling propeller in the air before driving the base into the exposed bedrock Yachiyo had been so kind to clear away for her. That quickly tapped into a small vein of lava deep down; as the Shaking Geyser, the spiritual native of the coal mines of the western equatorial continent could easily tap into deep magma vents to create mini-volcanoes when required. Such soon saw the staggering Rumour literally deluged in ultra-hot molten rock!
A wailing shriek escaped the creature as bits of mesonium within said lava flow ripped into it, which was enough for Momoko. "I got this thing!" she said as she pulled free of Yachiyo's grip, flinging her giant machete on the shadow girl.
Kaede cut off her own assault just in time as that magical blade literally cleaved the Rumour in twain!
A second later, just as the white-and-blue uniforms of the famous quartet forming the reborn Sixth Destroyer Division dived down from the sky to join their sister shipgirl from Egypt and her new friends — with Akamatsu Inoue carrying a picnic basket slung over her shoulder — what remained of that thing vanished in a burst of dark flame!
"Bózhe moj!" the Peaceful Lightning's silver-haired sister Himeko spat out in her adopted Russian. "What WAS that?!"
The others move to draw back into a defensive group around the four reborn Akamatsu-class fleet destroyers. "That's a pretty good question, Himeko-chan," Iroha hissed; as a healer, she had found herself surrounded by the quartet of childish yet VERY well-experienced destroyer shipgirls as soon as they were all planted on the ground.
"I've been asking that for a while now!" Momoko breathed out as Zahrā' used her powers to summon back the blonde's machete.
"I'm sure there's some connection to the whole puella magi system," the Mobile Healer declared with a grimace. "If not the Incubators themselves...or, Crystal forbid, their empathic vamp 'customers'!"
"These Sidines you told us about?" Momoko wondered as Rena stretched herself.
"Hai, Momoko-san. And if it directly connects to them, such is a clear threat to everything we've done here on Earth since Tariko-sempai began her casting drive." Shaking her head, Iroha sighed. "Meaning we'll have to take it out...and fast."
"This party private?" Rena then quipped.
Everyone stared at her tomboy before laughter echoed over the beach...
Elsewhere in Kamihama...
"From what I've heard about this city, it's no wonder you wanted to destroy it."
Hearing that comment from Tomoe Mami, the woman who saw herself as the "adjuster" of this particular city grimly nodded. "Were it not for Kanagi, my wish probably would have come true by now," Yakumo Mitama quietly noted, her normally sunny disposition dropped for this particular conversation that would change things quite radically for herself and others in the future. "She supported me after I was expelled from Mizuna. That helped me get in contact with someone who taught me how to use my powers to strengthen other puella magi..." A wry smile crossed her face. "Rather than weaken them like they were supposed to."
"Do you think she'd be interested in getting a Gift?" the Self-Moulder of the Pure Chaos asked. "I want to save as many puella magi as I can from the Incubators and the Sidines. I think she would be a big help."
"Next time I see her, I'll talk to her about this," Mitama offered. "I'll certainly consider your offer."
Gazing out the window from the quiet café where she had met the impish silver-haired woman, the first would-be "magical girl" to be Gifted sighed as she recalled how Nu'utam Sibie warned her that this particular city's days were numbered. It was unclear exactly WHAT would be the cause of Kamihama's destruction, but Mami now suspected that the woman seated across the table from her would play a key rôle...if she wasn't the actual CAUSE of such things.
No Terran-turned-Yizibajohei had yet KILLED another one like them since Tariko Katabarbe began her great casting drive.
Tomoe Mami didn't want the infamy of being the first to be forced down that ugly path.
Sipping her tea, she took a deep breath. "No matter what happens..." she quietly stated as she gave Mitama a wan smile, "...I'll make sure that as many puella magi like you are saved from a fate worse than death."
Hearing that vow from the teen sorceress, the Adjuster of Kamihama impishly smiled, hoisting her tea cup in salute...
To Be Continued...!
EDITOR'S NOTES
This story occurs immediately after the first Record of the Crystal entry. As was done in that story, more characters from the Magia Record anime side story released in 2020 appear here.
Hokumagun (in kanji, 北魔郡) is the short-hand term for the Tōhoku Teimajutsu-gun (東北帝魔術郡), which literally means "Imperial Magical Commandery of Tōhoku" and is the formal name for what would be referred to in Mahō Sensei Negima as the Tōhoku Magical Association. Of course, the short-title Tōmagun (東魔郡) is reserved for the Kantō Magical Association AKA Kantō Teimajutsu-gun (関東帝魔術郡). In the universe of these stories, as noted several times before, all magical metahumans in Japan are governed through the regional Magical Associations in lieu of a single Ministry of Magic. As for the regional magical government of Hokkaidō, which uses the same first kanji in its name, the short-term is Dōmagun (道魔郡).
The central sigil of the ship's crest worn by Lyonne Cazalet (SBM al-Qahir) is the civil emblem of the city of Cairo (in Arabic, al-Qāhirah), in whose honour she was renamed on being acquired by the Egyptian Navy.
Quick translation list: QF — Quick Firing, the general classification term used for rapid-fire weapons in the Royal Navy (English abbreviation); Yasen-baka — Night battle idiot, common nickname for Hashimoto Sei (THG Sendai) in Kantai Collection (Japanese); Bózhe moj — God help me (Russian).