--

"We drop in five minutes," Lupe orders over the radio. Well, you think she does. You're not paying much attention to your adorable little adjutant right now. You're a little too distracted by the thrumming of the Air Hauler's grav engines beneath your feet. That, and the strain of keeping something as large as a freakin' Air Hauler cloaked.

Gosh, you can feel your essence ticking away! Phew, what a nice workout this is turning out to be~!

"Lea, Nea. Clear the towers and the rooftop on my mark."

"Yes ma'am!" The twins salute, descending down to the Hauler's lower decks.

"Kisha, once they do -"

"Yeah, I've got it boss, I've had this virus sitting in their system for like, three days. Ready to deploy on your order," Kisha's voice crackles over the comms.

"Excellent. Mistress Alice, everything is in order," Lupe turns back to meet your eyes and offers up a little salute.

You sigh, stand up, and arch your back. Your joints make popping noises as you stretch languidly. A faint shimmer of pink flits across your skin as you stretch your magical 'muscles'. Finally. This house cleaning's been a long time coming.

"Great! Then let's get on with it already," you cheer. "I've got places to be, you know. Girlfriends to cuddle. Hey, hey, do you think Max'll like it if I leave these losers on her doorstep, all tied up? I mean I can't tell her I was the one who did that immediately, but do you think she'll like it?"

"… I can't say, mistress," Lupe attempts to deflect your question. "Three minutes."

Hee. Look at you, talking about decapitating one of Terminus City's gangs and dropping off their head honchoes like this. Well, it's really no big deal. It actually took longer for your maids to put this whole thing together. You've really lucked out, managing to kidnap and brainwash so many cute, competent girls~!

It's saved you a whole lot of effort, that's for sure. It helps that you're not trying to be remotely subtle or sneaky about dismantling this hopelessly violent gang of poseurs and losers.

No, today you're in the mood to burn everything to the ground. After raping and pillaging the places you'll knock over, of course. Rape and pillage always comes before arson and murder. If it's the other way around that leads to necrophilia!

And that's kinda got its own appeal if you squint and look at it funny, but personally, you've always believed girls are so much cuter when they're living and breathing. And capable of making more cute girls. Mmh…

"Mistress, you're drooling," Lupe intones.

"Sorry, sorry~!" You laugh. "One minute now?"

"One minute," Lupe nods.

The Air Hauler beneath you thrums, rusted piece of junk that it is. A second-hand air transport Lupe 'acquired' just for this little op. Unmarked, unregistered, and very much in danger of getting shot out of the sky if it weren't for your little cloaking trick. No sense in letting the meat get all up in arms before disposing of them, after all~!

"I'm dropping the cloak now. Tell Nea and Lea that they can open fire when they're ready, mmkay~? Oh, and tell the other girls they're free to start hitting all the other warehouses this silly little gang's got~!

--

In a small guardroom at the peak of Ryujin Tower, a nondescript security guard named Takeshi yawns and scratches his beard. Idly, his eyes flicker across the camera feeds. There's absolutely nothing out there. Well, of course, there wouldn't be anything.

It's Ryujin Tower, after all. Jintaro's personal playpen, and the penthouse is the sacred neutral meeting spot for the Jade Tigers' underbosses today. And all of the underbosses are having a meeting in the penthouse right now, something about Junko going missing and her warehouse getting blown up. Of course security's going to be at an all-time high.

There are armed guards posted on every floor of the building. Snipers on the rooftop. Even a SAM battery just in case someone gets funny and tries to kamikaze an aircar into the suite. Nobody would be insane enough to do that, or stupid enough to. And it's not like anyone would even know that the Jade Tigers would be meeting here, at this specific location, unless-

"Anything on the cameras?" One of the two cyberjockeys, Hana, sitting in the guardroom asks as she unplugs from her chair, snapping data cables out of her spinal port and brushing down her skin-tight suit.

"Nope. There'll continue to be nothing, sorry to disappoint," Takeshi grumbles.

"Keep looking, I'm gonna go take a shit. I'll unplug Matsuri when I get back so she can go take a leak too. You'd better not do anything funny with her, mister," Hana replies curtly.

"Yeah, whatever…" Takeshi pauses. Weird, there's something in the air, almost like something's burning… "Hey, did you pop a smoke when you were jacked in?"

"Uh? No?" The cyberjockey says, looking very confused.

"Then why do I smell something burning?"

And that's when Matsuri, the other cyberjockey seated in the security room, starts seizing. Electricity sparks from every single one of her cybernetic implants. The Jade Tiger cyberjockey convulses, clawing at her throat, foaming at the mouth as she begins to sizzle.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit-" Hana runs over. "Hit the alarm already you fat fuck, she's been spiked, we've got a breach-"

"On it, on it-" Takeshi babbles, freezing as he stares at the screen. Because out of nowhere, a massive bulk cargo hauler's suddenly appeared, and it opened its loading bay doors. And within those doors, Takeshi can clearly see two catgirl maids of all things.

Two catgirls dressed in sleek body armor sitting behind two big, big fuck-off mounted autocannons pointed right at the roof of Ryujin tower. Aimed right at the little guardhouse Takeshi's sitting in.

"Oh, fuck me…" Takeshi breathes, just as the catgirls open fire.

--

Ah, there's really nothing quite like the sweet, sweet sound of combat. The thumping of the autocannons below you, the screams of the poor fools who're being turned into so much shredded meat, the smell of blood…

Mmh. It's making you a bit randy~! Ooh, you're in the mood to have some fun tonight, even though what you're doing is really more like pest control. Because it's not like these garbage people really matter to you. No, the only reason you're doing this is because it'd be even more annoying to let some worthless ants keep crawling around and bothering your loves~!

"The rooftop's been cleared," Lupe reports.

"I'm looking at the same screen, dear, I can see that," you reply easily. Indeed, the rooftop of Ryujin Tower's… Basically been cratered. 20mm autocannon shells will do that to a place. Well, they've gotten the riff-raff out of the way. Now it's time for you to join the fun~!

"Tell Lea and Nea to follow me," you declare. "And get the rest of the squad ready. Once they're done, I think I'll be finishing things off personally. You know what they say after all, if you want something done right…"

--

"The maids are in the walls! They're coming out of the goddamn walls! Gaaah!"

"Keep firing, don't – hurk!"

"We need some goddamn support over here, they're like the fucking Terminator, they're killing us all-"

"Someone help me! Help me! I don't want to die to these maids-"

"Someone turn the fucking comms off!" Jintaro Jouji, one of the five underbosses heading the Jade Tigers, orders. The porcine man's red in the face, sweat beading on his bald scalp. Anyone looking at him right now wouldn't be able to tell that this man's Jintaro the Cannibal, one of the worst monsters ruling Terminus City's seedy underbelly, the man rumored to drink a glass of virgin's blood with every meal. "Turn it off I say, turn it off!"

Suzume Takao, another one of the underbosses, sighs, glancing at her perfectly manicured nails. "Whoever's behind this has obviously spiked the tower's systems, Jintaro," Suzume says. "Stop yelling at the guards already, this isn't helping at all."

What an absolute clusterfuck. A complete disaster. Who'd have imagined someone would be brazen enough to drop a cloaked Air Hauler right on top of Ryujin Tower and open fire with fucking autocannons? Don't they know whose city this is? Aren't they afraid of any potential reprisals from the corporations?

Or even the Magical Girls living in the city?

It's funny, there was a time when all Suzume did was pray for Magical Girls like Infinity Princess to leave and never come back. And now here she is, wishing Infinity Princess would come and put a stop to all of… This.

Infinity Princess would throw Suzume in a cell after breaking every bone in her body.

Whoever this is, well, Suzume's got a feeling they'd do much, much worse.

"We're the only ones left, Jintaro," Suzume reaches up, trying to conceal the all-consuming dread she's begun to feel. To think that once upon a time, she took pride in her lineage, in the fact that it was her family who'd had a part in ruling Terminus City's underground ever since their Yakuza group had come here from Japan.

And here she is, cowering in Jintaro's panic room, waiting for the end to come. No, there's no chance of escape, Suzume knows that deep in her heart. Not after the hauler disgorged a hundred cat-eared maids armed to the teeth.

Cat-eared superhuman maids, capable of shrugging off bullets, capable of ripping a man limb-from-limb and moving quicker than greased lightning. Suzume takes an idle glance at the camera feeds and gulps.

There, a maid's disemboweling one of her men with a trench knife. On another screen, two maids are gunning down Jade Tiger soldiers with perfect headshots. On a third screen, cat-girls have dropped from the ceiling with garrotes in hand.

Ninja cat-girl maids, of all the things. A half-deranged part of Suzume's mind almost wants to congratulate these would-be assailants for their excellent taste.

Most of the rest of Suzume is quaking in her designer heels, because it's only a matter of time before those maids come for her. Nakamura and Gotou have already been dragged off to who knows where, it was a minor miracle she managed to make it to this panic room with Jintaro…

"We should tell the men to surrender," Suzume decides.

"Fuck that, it's their jobs to die for us!" Jintaro replies angrily. "I'm getting the fuck out of here, just you wait and see, I don't care how many bitches I need to strangle-"

"If those maids aren't some kind of special-ops unit, I'll eat my necklace," Suzume says flatly, caressing her gaudy, shiny diamond necklace nervously. "Someone important's pissed off, and they decided to drop augmented special-ops forces right on top of your base. They're in here now, killing our men. And we have no idea who they are, or what they actually want. Maybe if-"

"You think, what, they'll just let us go if we surrender? They're trying to kill us! They shot at us with a fucking cannon!"

"And they stopped firing after they cleared the rooftop, so clearly they don't want us dead. And that's something we can use. Maybe…"

That's when there's a heavy thump, a thump that echoes through the room as something hits the reinforced door to this panic room very hard. Hard enough that the thick steel door visibly shudders on its hinges. The guards in the room tense, drawing their weapons, taking up positions behind the little cover available in the room.

Idly, Suzume notes that Jotaro's ducked under the conference table. As if even that's enough to cover his fat ass.

"Ma'am, you need to get down," Suzume's bodyguard orders her curtly.

"Yes, I probably should," Suzume muses as she ducks behind a chair and waits.

A moment of silence passes, filled only with Jotaro's heavy wheezing. One second passes, two, three.

Then laser light fills the room. Pink scintillating energy slices right through the doorframe. A slender, delicate foot kicks the reinforced vault door over, and it crashes into the floorboards.

And that's when Suzume sees her. A pink-haired, full-bodied woman, dressed in nothing but two strips of purple cloth that barely manage to cover her breasts, and panties that ride low enough on her crotch to expose the elaborate tattoo emblazoned underneath her navel. If it weren't for the sheen of magical energy coursing across her skin, Suzume could easily mistake this girl for one of Junko's hookers.

But there is that sheen, and then there are the demonic leathery wings behind her back, and then there's this girl's eyes. Those terrible, pitiless, hungry eyes...

"Hello, gangsters~!" The girl cheers, and Suzume balks at how… Peppy she sounds. How excited. As if she's just a sweet, innocent girl instead of the obvious monster she really is. "Gangsters? Gang… Hmm. What do you call yourselves again? You're the big cheeses for this silly little gang, aren't you? Do you have a funny little title you use? I'll use it just this once, so you'd better tell me what it is now or lose that privilege forever~!"

Suzume blinks. She's calling the Jade Tigers a silly little gang?! There are thirty thousand soldiers spread out across the city, and-

And why aren't the men shooting this monster?!

"You bitch, who the hell do you think you are?" Jotaro shouts, and Suzume ducks behind her seat, desperately wishing her idiotic colleague would shut the hell up and stop attracting so much attention-

"Hey, language!" The demon scolds, waggling her finger. "That's rude. Stop being rude."

"I – You – Shoot her! Shoot her now! Shoot her already, why-" Jotaro demands, and the pink-haired demon sighs.

"You silly humans with your silly guns," The demon sighs, the innocent smile on her face fully morphing into a petulant frown. "Do you really think your men are still under your control?"

Suzume jerks her head up now, surveying the guards in the room. They're all… Frozen in place. They haven't moved a muscle from their current positions. The only signs that they're even still alive… Are their jittering eyes, behind their shades. The involuntary twitching of their throats as they swallow, the pulse of their veins as their hearts beat…

"Gosh, this is irritating. And it's also not like I really need everyone in this room, soooo... You, you, you, you… Hmm…" The demon purses her lips. "Actually, everyone except for those two? Go ahead and kill yourselves, okay? I'd do it myself, but gosh, I just got my nails done and this really is so much more convenient…"

Is this girl insane? She can't be seriously-

Suzume jumps as she watches her bodyguard twitch, and shamble to his feet. His arms tremble, his hand shakes as he takes his sidearm and presses the gun's muzzle to the side of his own head. Much to Suzume's horror…

… All the other guards in the room have followed his cue.

"Wait, n-" Suzume begins, before she's cut off by gunfire. Blood sprays, some of it splattering onto Suzume's pristine dress. The Underboss trembles as she watches the bodies of – of everyone else in the room drop lifelessly to the floor.

Everyone except for Suzume, Jotaro, and this – this demon. The demon that's examining her arm and tutting at the flecks of blood and pink brain matter sprayed all across her skin.

"Hmm, for some reason I thought that'd be cleaner. I'm kind of glad I didn't order them all to disembowel themselves or something crazier…" The demon muses.

The taste of bile begins to rise in the back of Suzume's mouth, and she forcibly chokes back her vomit, even as her knees buckle and give way under her.

"Y – you -" Jotaro says, emitting a strangled wheeze. "You just… All of our men, you just- What the hell are you –"

The demon sighs, and rolls her eyes. Her unnaturally pink, glowing eyes… "Shut up already," the demon commands, a sweet hypnotic sound that-

"Nrgh!" Jotaro grunts as his mouth clamps shut. Suzume watchs in horror as her colleague falls to the floor and starts screaming wordlessly through his clenched jaw, both hands pawing at his face, desperately trying to open his lips.

"Shut. Up. Gosh, you really had to make me say it twice?"

It's eerie how quickly Jotaro stops making noise. His fat, piggy hands go from clawing at his face to clawing at his throat as his windpipe seals up. His face begins to turn blue, and specks of foam begin to bubble up from the corners of his lips as he chokes on his own breath-

"Mistress," A silver-haired maid struts in, tapping on a tablet computer. She's different, fluffy dog ears adorn her head instead of cat ears. "Mistress Alice."

"What is it Lupe?" Alice asks, sounding disinterested.

"…" Lupe glances at Jotaro's convulsing body, before looking away dismissively. "… I was under the impression that the leaders of the Jade Tigers were to be taken in alive."

"I mean I guess it'd be nice but honestly I didn't really care either way. I know a demon, I could probably have her scoop them out of hell so we can torture what's left of their souls and that guy was being super annoying – Wait, Jotaro was the one you wanted, wasn't he? And Jotaro's supposed to be, like, super fat?"

"That's correct, mistress."

"Fine, he can stop choking to death so you can choke him to death!" Alice giggles, reaching in to give her maid a quick hug. "Or you can butcher him, or decapitate him. Up to you, Lupe. He can be your chewtoy after we finish pumping him and his silly friends of all that sweet, sweet information…"

"I appreciate the sentiment, mistress, but that wasn't why I sought you out," Lupe says, reaching into her uniform to pull out a phone. "Lady Shikinami called just now, so I thought you sho-"

"Gimme the phone, gimme the phone, gimme the phone RIGHT NOW," Alice demands, swiping the phone right out of Lupe's hands and holding it up to her ear. "Hello~? Kaina. Kaina, is that you~?"

Suzume blinks at how – How casual this demon girl sounds now. If Suzume didn't know any better, she could swear this girl sounds like nothing but a love-struck maiden right now...

--

Kyah~!

Kaina called. Kaina called~! Oh, this is the first phone call you're having with Kaina, you're getting to hear her lovely voice over the phone!

Sure texts are nice, and you seriously love getting them because you can send all kinds of lewd suggestions and images to your love, but Kaina's sweet voice~!

"Alice? You're with… With Lupe then?" Kaina's tinny voice rings out through the phone's speakers.

"Yes, yes I am! And how are you doing? Are you doing okay?" You reply. "What's wrong, you usually text-"

"Are you safe right now?"

Er. You glance around at your bloody, filthy surroundings. The bodies of the garbage people you'd hypnotized into killing themselves still line the walls. The fat Jo-something you were torturing mildly is kinda passed out on the floor, still foaming at the mouth. And then there's…

Ooh, she's kinda cute~! Long black hair, big teary eyes, perfect lips. And those nails! Gosh, those are perfectly manicured…

No, no getting distracted, you're talking to your love right now!

"Yeah, I'm safe. I'm not in any danger. Why?"

"You should stay indoors today. Don't come out. Someone just dropped an Air Hauler on top of Ryujin Tower. TCPD reports that there's also been a significant increase in gang-related activity ever since. Warehouses have been firebombed, gang members have been shot on the streets-"

… Whoops. Guess the normies noticed your little decapitation strike. And the other targets you'd ordered your maids to hit with the intel you'd milked out of Junko, before throwing her into the tentacle pods to be remodeled.

As if you'd settle for just taking out the leadership of these schmucks. No, this gang's like a disease, really. A malignancy that's been forcing your loves to put in way more effort than they need to to clean up this city. Which means you get less wifey time with all of them!

And then there's the whole 'also, they're working with an evil corpo that's doing suspicious things around Kaina' thing!

The point is, they're rotten. And you know exactly what to do with malignancy. Cancer is to be ripped out, root and stem.

"Got it, definitely staying indoors tonight," you say, feeling your heart flutter just a little because… Because Kaina's warning you first about this! Kaina… Kaina cares about you! She's concerned for you!

Kyah~!

"Good. That's… That's good," Kaina replies, sounding a bit distracted. "… Sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?"

"… I don't know if you had anything planned between us this week. If you did… I might not be able to make it. Steele thinks we're going to have to pull overtime depending on what happens tonight…"

Oh. Oh no. No, no, no. "Just because some gang members are taking potshots at each other?"

"Because it could be the start of another gang war. Steele wants us all on standby. I agree with her. If the TCPD manage to quiet things down by themselves that's the best outcome, but if they can't…"

Oh cheese and crackers, you might've royally screwed up. This was supposed to be a quick thing! Easy! In and out, just wipe out this silly gang, kidnap then torture their leadership, and steal all their stuff in the process by hitting their warehouses at the same time! Simple! And it's been simple so far!

You didn't imagine you'd be… You'd be forcing the girl you love to take overtime! You might've just gotten Kaina to put in overtime hours!

What have you done?!

"Oh no, no, no," you murmur frantically. "Overtime, Kaina?"

"Yes. I'm sorry-"

"No, stop apologizing, it's your job to save the city and all of that, somehow I just completely forgot that's what you get paid for," you say. "Just… Before all of that, take care of yourself, okay? It's alright if you can't make it for a date this week, we can always schedule something for next week, or we could talk about something else. And you know you can always call me, or text me, or even send me a letter!"

"A letter? I don't…"

You hear a tiny peep. You glance down at the floor, where the final Jade Tiger Underboss is desperately trying to crawl towards cover in a futile bid to get out of your line of sight.

Ugh. That's right.

You've… Actually got things to do right now. Boring garbage people to hypnotize, bodies to dispose of. Maybe. And the loot! So many things to loot.

… As much as it pains you… You're going to have to end this conversation soon.

"Whatever works! So don't worry too much, okay? I'll be fine, and you will too. Now go save the city already, like the dashing Magical Girl you are. The girl I fell in love with. You know I love you, right Kaina?"

"I do. And I… I love you too, Alice."

"I love you more," you purr. "Talk to you soon, okay?"

"… Okay."

And with that, you finally hang up. You let out a long, contended sigh, trembling a little from the sheer happiness that's just welled up deep within your chest. Ah. Aaaaah~! That was nice. That was great. That was amazing. Gosh, just the sound of Kaina's voice is enough to make you so happy…

--

Suzume stares at the demon, confusion warring with the overwhelming fear that's infected her thoughts.

… What was that?

What even was that? This demon, Alice, just – just casually murdered all of Suzume's bodyguards in the cruelest way possible, after storming Jotaro's penthouse like an insane madwoman, and she – she stopped to have a phonecall with her girlfriend?

And now she's just trembling and smiling in place, clutching that phone to her bountiful chest. If Suzume didn't know better she'd think the girl was lovesick, or something ridiculous.

Who?! How?! Why?! Suzume has so many questions right now…

… And no real wish to have any of them answered, because Suzume would like to live right now.

So the second the demon turns to scan the panic room, Suzume ducks behind the corpse of her bodyguard and goes still. Maybe, possibly, hopefully, if Suzume plays dead then… Then…

"Get up already, you aren't fooling anyone," Alice calls out, and the sound of her cruel voice sends cold shivers all the way down Suzume's spine.

Suzume stumbles to her feet, tears beading in the corners of her eyes. Of course. Suzume should've known that the demon wouldn't be fooled. This isn't some love-struck girl Suzume's dealing with, after all, for all she sounded like one earlier.

"I don't really have much time, I've got to jet and run in a bit, so I'll keep things simple. You can come with me willingly, or I can have Lupe break your arms and legs and then drag you along. And I'd prefer not to do that, because you're kinda cute, so… What's it gonna be, uh…" Alice pauses, then turns to her adjutant. "Lupe, what's this one's name again?"

"Suzume Norashi, heiress to the Norashi syndicate," Lupe replies.

"Right, Suzu-whoever," Alice shrugs, turning to stare Suzume with those cold, pitiless pink eyes. Eyes that bore into the core of Suzume's being and disregard her entirely. It's as if Alice is staring through Suzume right now.

To Alice, Suzume doesn't really matter, after all. Not even as a toy or a potential plaything. No, right now, Suzume's just meat and the question Alice's asking Suzume is if she'd like to be useful meat or useless meat to be discarded.

For Suzume, the answer to that question is obvious. The elegant heiress gets to her knees…

Then immediately sinks into dogeza, bowing so deep her forehead slams against the floorboards.

"Please spare my life! I swear I'll be your loyal servant – no, your slave! I'll be your slave! I'll tell you everything I know about the Jade Tigers, I'll help you with whatever you need so please just don't kill me!" Suzume begs, tears streaming down her cheeks.

There's a brief pause and Suzume whimpers at the deafening silence that falls across the room. A silence that's only broken when Alice starts to slow-clap.

"I mean, I'm impressed. Lupe, are you impressed? That's a nice dogeza."

"… Heavenly Testament has better form," Lupe scoffs.

Suzume instantly presses her body harder against the floor, to the point where her breasts begin to dig uncomfortably against the floorboards, where the buttons on her dress begin to pop, where her spine and thighs begin to twinge and strain.

"Eh, we can compare them later. For now? You, get up. I'm in a good mood now, so you get to walk out of here on your own power. And maybe I'll keep you as a pet instead of turning you into a breeding bag if you keep bowing like that. So start walking, okay~?"

"O – Okay," Suzume sobs, her shoulders quaking as she's wracked by sheer relief.

The simple relief of being able to live.

--