Akane decided to try using Haruka's methods of persuasion against the Columns, much to Haruka's consternation. When Mai and Shiho sided with Akane, Haruka finally agreed and lowered her objections to bitter grumbling.
Akane and her team chose to make their attack against the Columns when the five Robed women were returning to Garderobe's courtyard from their latest campaign. Shizuru was the most baffled of her group when she saw Akane, Shiho, and Mai standing in the way of the academy stairs in their blue uniforms outside of their barracks. Before they were able to question Akane, the Columns were abruptly separated when a wall of green vines erupted from the ground and tried to grasp them. Although Shizuru was able to neutralize this attack with a wide slash from her naginata that easily cleaved through the vines, her colleagues were already shaken as they realized Akane's team had turned against them.
Mai quickly acquired the first kill. While Natsuki frantically attempted to aim her Robe's cannon at any of her opponents, Mai exhaled a small fireball that struck its stationary target on the chest and left a smoldering hole through Natsuki's torso. Natsuki lifelessly dropped the weapon from her hands and stood frozen on her feet. Her last moments were spent in a feeling of horror as she disappeared in a flurry of green embers that lit up the night sky and released her connection to Garderobe's Column subsystem.
Nao watched her colleague's demise and became overwhelmed in anger. She desperately tried trapping her opponents in the pink glowing rope that was shot from her arm shield, and she missed Akane, Shiho, and Mai several times as they dodged. Nao was then taken by shock as the concrete road erupted underneath her and she was ensnared in the same vine trap that had attacked her before. Now, without Shizuru's immediate support, Nao was quickly engulfed in the quivering tendrils. Inside her cramped prison, Nao's GEM was destroyed and she began undergoing the same process that Mai had suffered some time ago.
Mahya quickly dashed toward Nao's grass cocoon in an attempt to save her doomed comrade. Now that Mahya was distracted, Shiho was able to swoop in and lift her from under her arms. Mahya tried to struggle out of Shiho's grasp, but soon realized not even the flight drives of her Robe could overcome the strength of Shiho's small black wings. Shiho carried Mahya through the air to the front of a tree in Garderobe's courtyard, and Akane suddenly pounced out of the tree's rustling shadows with her bladed short staff drawn. The defenseless Mahya watched in horror as Shiho forcefully guided her dark belly into Akane's blade. The two aggressive Otome then allowed Mahya to fall from the air with Akane's blade still impaling her, and her lifeless remains quickly disappeared in the same display as Natsuki shortly after hitting the paved ground. Akane recovered her weapon after landing on her feet and dashed toward Shizuru, who was now busy fending off Mai and Haruka.
As the battle raged, the last member of the Column group, Sara Gallagher, was watching her team drop like flies from a safe distance with her black Robe's cloaking feature. She silently hovered in front of a wall on Garderobe's exterior, and she was suddenly interrupted by the feeling of a slimy arm wrapping around her waist and a female frame pressing against her back. With her concentration broken, Sara disengaged the cloaking effect and looked over her shoulder. Nao had blossomed from her nearby earthen prison, and was now using her new natural abilities to cling to wall behind Sara in her still soaked formal uniform. A pair of small antennae bobbed in her short red hair, and she smiled to reveal two fangs dripping with venom. Sara cried out in anger as she struggled against Nao's hooked arm.
"Nao, damn it! This isn't the time to play around!"
Nao only giggled and replied in a sultry tone as she continued to use her feet and opposite arm to cling to the wall.
"You look delicious, Sara..."
Sara screamed as she felt Nao's injectors puncture the back of her neck. The concentrated acid of Nao's venom quickly turned the blonde Column's insides into a molten soup, and Nao growled in disappointment as her limp dinner faded from her arm in a sparkling swarm of green particles. After a brief moment by herself, Nao shrugged, jumped from her hiding spot, and scurried across the ground toward the final Column when her instinctive drive to protect Akane's team kicked in.
Completely overwhelmed by Akane, Mai, Haruka, and Shiho's attacks, the Robed Shizuru dropped her naginata in exhaustion and attempted to flee the scene. However, upon turning around, she was instantly stabbed by Akane's baton, followed by those of Akane's three subordinates. Shizuru soon slumped to the ground of Garderobe's courtyard in her purple Robe and disintegrated in the same fashion as the other deceased Columns.
Akane and her friends smiled in relief and congratulated each other when the battle was over. The four girls froze in place nervously, however, when they heard someone quietly walk up behind them. They turned around the see the new form of Nao. Her Column uniform was now mostly dry, and she was grinning toward the other young women as her antennae twitched and identified them as friendly comrades. She addressed her onlookers with playful energy.
"Is it okay if I join you guys now?"
Akane eagerly allowed Nao to join the team, and the five girls silently formed a bond that night that lasted for the rest of their lives. They escaped from Garderobe just as they planned and headed toward a remote area in the Black Valley woods that Mai suggested. Although all of the girls' bodies were heavily dependent on Garderobe's serum injections, Haruka found she was able to siphon the sappy nutrients of the plants she controlled into a tasty drink that prevented the sickness of withdrawal in herself and her friends. As they were living in a lush forest, Haruka was able to keep the team healthy and slowly weened them off of their chemical dependency.
Garderobe wasn't sure what to make of its sudden loss of leadership. In their confusion, they were soon invaded by an outside force. This wasn't a formal attack from a neighboring nation, however, but actually the return of Akane and her team, who-even including Nao-attacked the former military academy out of discontent for being exploited as Shizuru's underlings. Once their raid was successful, the five mutant women took a mischievous liking to widespread destruction and used their unusual talents in unison to raze outside countries in similar surprise attacks. They proved to be unstoppable together, and slowly plunged the world into a state neither side could have predicted during the War of the Five Columns. Akane's team grew to notoriety as vicious outlaws, and they single-handedly left the whole of Earl in anarchic darkness.
Thanks to Akane's rampage, the countryside lived in constant paranoia of surprise attacks from the infamous Meister squad. In the end, her team unofficially conquered the world with terrorism.
THE END.