Magia: A New Hope

by Pentalithia

A Madoka / Magia Record fan suddenly wakes up in the world of magical girls, as a side character. Features Ashley Taylor. Note: In case it's not obvious, you should expect massive spoilers here for nearly everything in the franchise.

83. Closing in on Fendt Hope

Have you heard? Has anyone told you?
The Rumour of the Saint of Kamihama!
A resplendent saint has descended upon Kamihama,
accompanied by rays of holy light!
She need only reach out her hand to soothe the pain
of any brokenhearted girls and bring them salvation.
They will be mesmerized
by the Holy Maiden of Liberation
and do her every bidding!
This one's got Tomoe Mami super interested.
Deliver us!

---

"You missed your chance to get rid of us," Kanagi said. "And now your plan is in shambles."

"Um, I hate to say this," Ashley said. "But this whole thing was actually a stalling tactic… at least mostly…"

Yachiyo gasped. "Y-you can't be serious…!"

Mami giggled. "Miss Taylor is correct. Magical girls are going to be freed from their curse and saved. I'm just happy that we're getting closer to making that a reality."

"What?" Yachiyo said. "You didn't eliminate magical girls from Kamihama or get rid of us! You failed on both counts!"

"That was never the main goal with this rumour," Ashley said. "It was more of a side goal, if anything…"

Mami chuckled. "Indeed, though I'm not sure how Miss Taylor found out," she said. "One should always keep their most important secrets hidden. Now, it's just about time. The gears won't stop turning. Our designs have now come to fruition! Any minute now…"

"I don't know if that's meant to be a pun," Ashley said. "Since Walpurgisnacht is a witch born by giant gears… but if it was intentional, that's in really poor taste, Miss Tomoe."

As Ashley spoke, the lights all across the city were suddenly snuffed out, casting Kamihama in a pall of darkness deeper than it had seen for many, many years. Mere seconds later, a number of red lights came on, perhaps indicating places that had deployed emergency power sources. Though not every place had such reserves, a great many did, and the deep red of many of these lights filled Kamihama with an ominous glare.

"Agh! The power went out!" Felicia gasped.

"A blackout!?" Yachiyo gasped. "Is this part of your plan!?"

"Indeed it is," Mami said. "Both the city's power and its radio waves are now under our control."

"No way…" Yachiyo said.

"Of course, our communicators should still work," Ashley said. "Though I'm not sure if the signal they're now sending out will jam the airwaves for awhile… but that'll go off once they've lured in their catch."

"So it really was you guys behind the cellular network outage," Yachiyo said. "That's why our phones didn't work…"

"Yes," Mami said. "All the fuss you girls caused just made it easier for the feathers to take action."

Ashley nodded. "As she said, killing all the magical girls across Kamihama wasn't their only mission," she said. "This massive hack into the city's core systems probably wouldn't have been possible without this rumour they used on their followers."

"What on earth have you done?" Yachiyo asked.

"You'd better brace yourself," Ashley said. "Because you're not gonna like the answer."

"What are you planning to do with this city!?" Yachiyo shouted.

"We have summoned her," Mami said.

"Summoned?"

Mami chuckled. "Yes, the Magius summoned her to Kamihama," she said. "The legendary catastrophe-class witch… they have summoned Walpurgisnacht."

"Walpurgisnacht is coming to Kamihama!?" Yachiyo gasped. "What have you done!?"

"You've certainly outdone yourselves in terms of foolish ventures," Kanagi said.

"Huh?" Felicia said. "Wal-pur-gee-snack? What's that? What's the problem with getting snacks?"

"Walpurgisnacht is the name of a witch," Tsuruno said.

"A witch?" Felicia said.

"She's a legend amongst magical girls," Tsuruno said. "Probably the worst witch ever to exist… she causes unimaginable disasters."

"Huh!?" Felicia gasped. "What the hell! Why the hell would you ever call something like that here!?"

"To make matters worse, the Magius are attempting to power her up even more," Ashley added.

"I don't understand it, either," Yachiyo said. "What in the world are they thinking? And you, Miss Taylor… if you already knew about their plans, why didn't you do something!?"

"Me? I saw it as an opportunity," Ashley said. "My goal is to kill Walpurgisnacht, after all. I've called in reinforcements from neighbouring cities for that express purpose."

"You can't do that, Miss Taylor," Mami said. "Walpurgisnacht will help Eve to hatch. She's got such incredible power. I'm sure Eve will hatch for us! Then we can finally receive our salvation."

Mami chuckled.

"So the Magius say," Ashley said. "I'm still of the opinion that nothing you do would make Eve hatch though…"

"Absolute lunacy," Kanagi said. "They must have lost all reason."

"It's futile to try and stop us," Mami said. "It doesn't matter how many reinforcements you've brought in, Miss Taylor. Walpurgisnacht is already on her way to Kamihama, and there is nothing you can do to stop her. Give up. Even a hundred magical girls working together wouldn't be able to bring her down."

"Though, we actually have far more than a hundred magical girls in this city now," Ashley muttered. "If you count all the feathers…"

"You want us to watch and sit by as the city gets crushed?" Yachiyo retorted. "Sorry, we won't be doing that. No, we'll do whatever it takes to catch the Magius and put a stop to all of this."

"I just told you, didn't I?" Mami said. "It's futile. You will all be hunted down."

"This can't be…" Kanagi said. "Nanami, do you sense all that magic approaching?"

"Are you saying they're sending even more feathers here!?" Yachiyo gasped.

"You have only yourselves to blame," Mami said. "You hid all of the magical girls away, the ones we planned to lead to salvation."

"So you called in all the feathers you had waiting," Yachiyo said.

Mami chuckled. "You just said our plan was in shambles, but what a shame… it turns out we can still erase you from existence just fine."

"There are quite a lot of feathers in the Wings of the Magius," Ashley said. "Though most of them are on the weaker side, they probably outnumber you guys who haven't joined up at least two to one. At this point, with the exception of the Magius, Miss Mifuyu, and the skeleton crew left behind to guard the base, probably the entire organization is heading to the helipad."

"There's so many of them," Kanagi said. "We don't stand a chance against these numbers."

"I'm pretty beat, guys," Felicia said.

"I can still fight," Tsuruno said. "I have a lot of energy left even after beating the rumour."

"So it's just us against the entire Wings of the Magius?" Yachiyo said. "I wonder if we can hold out?"

"There's no need to worry," Ashley said. "Miss Togame and a number of others are on their way, too. Maybe they'll even have grief seeds to share. We only need to hold out for a few minutes until everyone else arrives. It might be difficult, but I think it's within our abilities."

"If this is what it's come to, then we have no other choice," Yachiyo said.

"You have a plan in mind?" Kanagi asked.

"They planned to get rid of the emotional pillars of our team," Yachiyo said. "Then we'll get rid of Miss Tomoe, their emotional pillar."

"We still don't know how we can remove the rumour from her," Kanagi said.

"Yes, it'll be risky," Yachiyo said. "But there's a chance that we might be able to get through to her."

"But you can't do it by yourself, Yachiyo!" Tsuruno said.

"Yeah!" Felicia said.

"No, I think we should take the risk if Nanami is willing to do it," Kanagi said. "The feathers have been weakened, but they overwhelm us in sheer numbers. We're all exhausted. It's only a matter of time before we fall."

"Ugh…" Felicia said.

"And I think Miss Nanami is the perfect person for the job," Ashley said. "Other than Miss Sakura, who knows Miss Tomoe very well, I think Miss Nanami is the closest to being able to understand her pain."

"Can you do this, Nanami?" Kanagi asked.

"Yes, I'll try," Yachiyo said. "So please hold on as long as you can. I hope I can live up to Miss Taylor's expectations."

"Today will go down in history," Mami said. "Walpurgisnacht has begun her journey, and we will lead two leaders to the light."

"We'll see about that," Yachiyo said.

"I do agree today will go down in history," Ashley said. "It will be remembered as the day that Walpurgisnacht was finally destroyed, once and for all." She turned to face the stairwell. "I'm sorry to ask, but… the others are running a little later than I anticipated. Are you able to fight a little longer?"

The girl with the naginata, Komachi, got to her feet.

"Well, we did use our grief seed, so we can fight for a little while," she said. "I can sense the feathers already coming upstairs… let's do this, everyone!"

She and her friends all hopped down and came over to join them.

"Since we have a minute before the feathers appear, let's do proper introductions," the girl who looked like a priestess said. "I'm Liliane Pierrot. That jester girl with the same face as me is my twin sister, Elise. The girl with the naginata is Hayashi Komachi, and her little sister Hiyori is the girl with the harp. The girl dressed like a nun is Claire Branch, and last but not least, my close friend Kaori Sachie."

"Thank you for helping," Yachiyo said. "I'm Nanami Yachiyo… these are Izumi Kanagi, Yui Tsuruno, and Mitsuki Felicia. And…"

She glanced at the Amane twins and other exhausted feathers sitting on the ground a short distance away.

"Well, I'll stop there," Yachiyo said.

"If you plan to challenge me in the state you're in now, you'll die," Mami said.

"Save it for after you've tried to kill me," Yachiyo retorted.

More feathers emerged out onto the roof, swarming them, but everyone held them back while Yachiyo took on Mami alone. Encouraged by the appearance of reinforcements, the Amane twins got to their feet and began to command the feathers, still in their white robes but with the hoods now pushed back. At their urging, many of the feathers already on the roof got to their feet to rejoin the fight.

Even with the seven of them holding back the horde of feathers, it took all their concentration not to let a single one through. A few times one of them almost broke the line, but Ashley would either summon Teddy Mk II to temporarily fill the gap or use her telekinesis to push the feather back, or Sachie would suddenly shake her sounding staff, causing the girl to freeze. Even so, after keeping at it for maybe five to ten minutes, they were all starting to feel the exhaustion.

"Dammit!" Felicia groaned. "I'm not gonna hold up much longer…"

"W-we've got her!" one of the black feathers facing her said. "If we strike now, even we can take her down!"

Several black feathers attacked her at the same time, throwing her to the ground.

"Felicia!" Tsuruno called.

"I-I'm fine!" Felicia gasped, hopping up to her feet. "I can still fight!"

"But… but we beat so many of them," Tsuruno said.

Claire slipped in between Felicia and Tsuruno at lightning speed and knocked back two of the offending feathers, panting heavily.

"I'm not finished yet!" Claire declared.

"Now!" Tsukuyo said. "They are on the brink of crumbling! Press the attack!"

"Y-yes!" one of the black feathers responded.

The Amane twins and several other feathers had managed to encircle Kanagi and were closing in on her.

"Ugh!" Kanagi gasped. "G-get away from me!"

"Flute Blossom Resonance!"

The Amane twins unleashed their combined attack on Kanagi, freezing her in place and causing her to scream.

"That sound!" Kanagi gasped.

"Miss Kanagi!" Tsukasa said. "We don't want to kill you! We're sorry!"

They repeated the attack from their flute, causing Kanagi to groan.

"Ugh, my legs are about to give out," Kanagi muttered.

The sound of a harp rang out, and several black feathers swinging their chains at Kanagi somehow missed their target.

"I don't think I can go on much longer," Hiyori gasped, panting. "Is… is everyone alright?"

"I can still fight!" Komachi said. "I've only been using magic on healing, so I'm still in pretty good shape!"

"Ugh… speak for yourself," Elise muttered.

She had already collapsed in a heap on the ground, together with her sister.

"I'm running on empty here…" Elise said.

"M-me too," Liliane said. "Sorry, guys…"

Sachie struck her sounding staff against the ground, causing the feathers closing in on her to not only freeze but even back off.

"I'm good for now, but I'm not sure how long I can keep this up," she said.

"I can still continue, too," Claire said. "Like Komachi-chan, I haven't been using much magic."

"I should be able to last a little longer," Ashley said. "In the worst case, one or two of us could unleash our doppel, but I'd like to avoid that if possible. It might win us the fight, but I can't be sure it'll hit the enemy only… and honestly, I don't think doppels should be used on people. Plus, I don't think it's entirely safe to use a doppel."

"I agree," Kanagi said. "Such a power is too good to be true. There must be a hidden cost you are unaware of."

While everyone else was complaining about how exhausted they were, Mami and Yachiyo were exchanging blows, showing themselves to be almost evenly matched… but Mami just barely had the upper hand, and Yachiyo looked like she was starting to get tired too.

"This ends now!" Mami proclaimed.

She fired several times at Yachiyo.

"N-not yet!" Yachiyo said.

"What a surprise," Mami said. "Most of the others are barely even able to stand at this point. You really are special, Miss Nanami."

"Perhaps," Yachiyo said. "I haven't been fighting as a magical girl for the past seven years for nothing. There's no way I'll fall to my knees here!"

Then Yachiyo gasped. Just then, for a moment, she thought she heard the voices of Kanae and Mel calling her name. It was impossible, and yet… she could feel something happening… something warm and comforting, welling up from deep inside her. It was… someone else's magic. Kanae's magic, and Mel's magic… somehow, even after they were long gone, they were still supporting her.

"I can still fight," Yachiyo said, straightening up. "No, right now I could even stop you…"

"Interesting that you can still fake bravado like that in the state you're in," Mami said.

"It isn't bravado," Yachiyo stated. "I know in my heart I can take you on. It's hard to describe, but I can tell that something is supporting me…"

"I have no clue what you're talking about," Mami said. "Oh well. It doesn't matter. Your friends and Miss Taylor's won't last much longer anyway. It's only a matter of time before each of you becomes an offering under my guidance. Come, my dear Florence!"

With that, she unleashed her doppel, summoning a massive swarm of muskets surrounding the pair of them.

"It's too late to surrender, Miss Nanami," Mami said. "Your fate ends here!"

"I could say the same to you!" Yachiyo said. "Your time as a rumour is over, Miss Tomoe!"

"Tiro Finale, Holy Night!" Mami shouted.

As the muskets all began firing at once, Yachiyo leapt at Mami with her halberd, forcing her into the line of fire of her own attack, though not without taking quite a few hits herself. Mami gasped and screamed, unable to redirect or stop the attack in time. When the smoke cleared, Mami was on the ground with Yachiyo standing over her, pointing her halberd at the other girl's throat.

"Why won't you understand!?" Mami shouted. "Miss Kaname, Miss Akemi, and now all of you! The liberation of magical girls is a glorious and wonderful thing!"

"You're right," Yachiyo said. "I'd never be able to understand. Not in an entire lifetime! Just like how you can't seem to comprehend any of our feelings whatsoever!"

"Well, why should I!?" Mami shouted. "I could spend my whole life trying to understand and still fail to!"

Yachiyo chuckled. "That's all I needed to hear! I'll tear that rumour from you right away!"

"I won't let you stop us," Mami said. "I won't allow anyone to stop our plan!"

She grabbed Yachiyo's halberd, heedless of the blade, and used it to pull herself up to her feet, thrusting a musket into Yachiyo's face and firing. Yachiyo barely managed to dodge the shot by desummoning her halberd and dropping to the ground, slipping past Mami before leaping back up. Mami gasped as she disappeared from her field of vision.

"W-where did she…?"

"Behind you!" Yachiyo shouted.

She summoned a new halberd and attacked Mami from behind.

"Ugh! Where did you get all of this power from!?" Mami shrieked.

"I'm not quite sure myself, honestly," Yachiyo said. "But I suppose you could say… my precious friends are supporting me."

Without turning around, Mami summoned several muskets and fired blindly behind her, startling Yachiyo.

"Really, what is up with this power!?" she shouted

Yachiyo was caught off guard and didn't have a chance to dodge, taking most of the bullets and only managing to protect her soul gem. Mami spun to face her.

"Your fun ends here!" she shouted.

Once again she summoned a whole host of muskets floating around her, even more than the last time, layers upon layers of them spiraling up into the sky.

"Let me shepherd you… obey, and become food for Eve!"

"So many guns!" Yachiyo gasped.

"I'll spare your soul gem, at least!" Mami shouted.

But Yachiyo summoned up a swarm of her halberds, arraying about half of them as a sort of shield against the threatened bombardment while the rest were pointed straight at Mami. The quantity wasn't quite as impressive as Mami's, but it came close.

"You're not the only one who can conjure up a lot of weapons!" Yachiyo shouted. "I have no idea what kind of rumour you're wearing. But I'll tear it from you with these spears!"

"The rumour has nothing to do with this!" Mami shouted. "I'm acting out of my own free will! Now shatter into dust! Tiro Finale, Holy Night!"

"Absolute Rain!" Yachiyo screamed.

For nearly a full minute, bullets and halberds rained down upon the two of them, throwing up dust and smoke and obscuring their view. Mami's screams could be heard as halberd after halberd found their mark, but Yachiyo's screams could also be heard as bullets found their way through her shield.

As the bombardment drew to an end, both of them stepped forward until they could see each other despite the smokescreen. Then, as Mami pointed some sort of blade at her, Yachiyo charged magic into her hand and jumped in to grab Mami's hand in her own. There was a flash, just like when she connected with someone to boost their attack, and Mami gasped.

Like when they had freed Tsuruno, Yachiyo got a glimpse into her mind, a hint of how she'd allowed the brainwashing to take over because it allowed her to handle the revelation about witches, a glimpse of the loneliness the younger girl had been feeling, and the feelings of inadequacy. Mami actually started to cry, and the strange outfit she wore peeled away and was shoved aside, her regular magical girl outfit taking its place.

"Miss Tomoe," Yachiyo said. "So that was how you really felt…"

Mami powered down and fell to her knees.

"I really was… part of the rumour," she muttered.

"But our hearts connected, so I was able to rip it off you," Yachiyo said. "That time, when you spared Miss Kaname and the others, I could tell that some of your moral fibre remained, however little. Besides… I feel the same way about wanting to save everyone. So I thought we might be able to understand each other somehow."

"Miss Nanami…" Mami muttered.

"Plus, each of us thought it impossible to get through to the other," Yachiyo said. "In a sense, don't you think we connected on that level?"

Mami giggled a bit, wiping her tears away. "I think you might be pushing it there…"

"But still, I got through to you," Yachiyo said.

"Thank you, Miss Nanami. This time, I hope we manage to reach an understanding."

But the outfit that had been peeled off of her was no ordinary clothing. Even without Mami wearing it, it still moved as if someone wore it… and it was a rumour to boot, so now that Yachiyo had denied the rumour, it created a labyrinth to suck them in, then stepped towards Yachiyo, giggling eerily.

"That just leaves the rumour," Yachiyo said.

"Here," Ashley said, stepping over to her. "If you want, I'll let you borrow my sword… I'm too exhausted to fight much longer, and I need a chance to rest a bit before Walpurgisnacht arrives, but this is a real sword, not a construct of my magic. That means it can be used by anyone. Of course, you're more used to wielding halberds, so…"

"No, I think even I am reaching my breaking point now, so I'll take any advantage I can get," Yachiyo said. "Thank you very much."

Ashley handed over the sword, and Yachiyo gripped it and did a few experimental swings.

"You're right though," she said. "It feels weird using a sword… but I think I should be able to manage."

Ashley stepped back. Some of remaining feathers were starting to murmur about how their 'saint' had been defeated, and many of them seemed to have lost the will to fight. The Amane twins, however, were still motivated.

"Do not be intimidated," Tsukuyo declared.

"Right, we still have tons of allies," Tsukasa said.

"And our opponents are weakened," Tsukuyo said.

"Even if we can't beat all of them, we can at least capture them," Tsukasa said.

"For sure!" Tsukuyo said.

Their speech seemed to motivate quite a few of the feathers.

"That's true," one of the black feathers said. "If we do it now…"

"Y-yes, even without our saint, we can do this ourselves!" another black feather said.

Yachiyo sighed. "These girls just won't give up," she said. "Everyone…"

"Ugh, they're popping up all over the place," Felicia said.

"Yeah, I might not be able to keep this up for much longer," Tsuruno said.

"What a joke," Kanagi said. "Being driven into a corner by mere feathers!"

"Things have just gone from bad to worse," Yachiyo said. "I can't handle much more of this either…"

While they were chatting, the rumour decided to attack, startling Yachiyo.

"Please, focus on the rumour, Miss Nanami!" Ashley said. "Miss Togame and the others should be here in just a few minutes… we only have to hold out for that long!"

---

"It's just like that Emiri girl said, Momoko," Rena said. "There's loads of them nearby."

They had arrived in Chuo Ward, heading towards the heliport building. The party consisted of twenty-four magical girls in total. Momoko, Kaede, and Rena were present, of course, as well as Nanaka's entire team and the Azalea trio. Himika and Rui were trailing behind with Riko. Besides that, they had Hinano and Emiri, Asuka and Sasara, the Asako sisters, Konomi, Masara, and lastly Manaka, Ria, and Tsumugi.

"Yeah… and they're all in the same direction," Momoko said.

"Are Kanagi and the others really up there on the helipad?" Himika asked. "I tried to sense them, but everything's all muddled."

"Yeah," Kaede said. "We can only really tell how many there are."

"The self-proclaimed 'mightiest' and the mercenary girl ran that way and haven't come back," Hinano said. "And that Ashley Taylor girl was also flying in the same direction. That's scary enough. All three of them are pretty strong."

"Yeah," Rena said.

"And now all the feathers are travelling in the same direction," Kaede said. "Or actually, most of them have already arrived there…"

"Yeah, something's definitely up," Momoko said. "Hang in there, Miss Yachiyo!"

A few minutes later, they finally reached the target building and headed up to the roof, but it was almost completely deserted. The only people there were unconscious feathers. However… there was clearly a lot of magic present.

"They must be inside the rumour!" Momoko said. "Where's the barrier!?"

"Over here!" Nanaka said, pointing.

There was a portal bearing the emblem of the Wings of the Magius. Everyone piled inside and discovered a whole bunch more feathers, including the Amane twins who wore their white feather robes with the hoods pushed back. Tsuruno, Felicia, Kanagi, Ashley, and six other girls that Momoko didn't recognize were fighting off the feathers. Those must be the reinforcements Ashley had mentioned earlier. As for Yachiyo, she was facing off against what appeared to be Mami's rumour robe, sans Mami herself, who sat on the ground a short distance away. Other than Yachiyo, they were clearly at the edge of exhaustion already.

"…we only have to hold out for that long!" Ashley was saying.

Yachiyo must have heard the sound of their footsteps, for she turned towards the reinforcements.

"Who's there!?"

"Can't believe you didn't sense us coming, when there's this many of us!" Momoko said. "Miss Yachiyo and Miss Kanagi, you must really be in trouble! I actually had good timing for a change!"

"Momoko!" Yachiyo gasped. "You're finally here!"

"I told them you were coming," Ashley said. "But we were kinda too busy to pay attention to your magical signatures… especially when so many more feathers also kept showing up."

"We finally caught up to you, Miss Ashley!" Koito said.

"Well, we gathered up a good number of people," Momoko said.

"We just finished explaining everything to them!" Kaede said.

"We have a lot of problems ahead of us," Rena said. "But we're all in agreement that we have to stop these guys."

"Now we can't capture the veterans!" one of the white feathers grumbled.

"What do we do now!?" a black feather next to her gasped.

"We must fight until our very bodies crumble away!" Tsukuyo said.

"Or you could, y'know, just surrender," Ashley suggested.

"No, the two of you have been fighting non-stop since the start," the white feather said. "We will hold them back. You should go and report to the Magius."

"Tsukuyo-chan!" Tsukasa said. "We should go do what we can!"

"How unseemly," Tsukuyo said.

"No, don't do it, Tsukuyo-chan," Ashley said. "If you report to the Magius now, they're just gonna feed you to Eve."

"They wouldn't do that!" Tsukasa protested. "If anything, they'd feed you to her, because you've suddenly gone and betrayed them! What must Miss Itsumi think, knowing that you've abandoned her!?"

"Think what you like," Ashley retorted. "Right now, those three are little more than spoiled brats throwing a tantrum. Why would you think you're safe from their wrath? Especially since you've failed them over and over and over again… through no fault of your own, I might add. But the Magius don't see things that way. To them, successive failures is no different from a betrayal. That puts you on the same level as me in their eyes."

"B-but e-either way, we must at least inform them of the situation," Tsukuyo said. "So then… we shall be going now. As long as we are honest, I should hope that they will be understanding."

"That's wishful thinking, but it's not like I can stop you," Ashley said with a sigh.

As the twins ran off, seeking an exit from the labyrinth, Riko ran up to Yachiyo and beamed at her.

"Thanks for saving me earlier, onee-san!" she said. "Now it's our turn to save you!"

"Thank you, everyone," Yachiyo said. "Momoko, sorry but I'm going to leave the rest to you."

"Yeah, you can count on me!" Momoko said. "But… why're you using a sword? That's not like you…"

"It's Miss Taylor's sword," Yachiyo said. "She claims it has anti-rumour properties… I'm sure she'll be okay with you using it, too."

"Of course," Ashley said. "Feel free to borrow my sword, Miss Togame."

"Then I'll gladly take it," Momoko said, doing so and hefting one sword in each hand. "Rena! Kaede! Let's give this one last push! We're gonna wipe this rumour out!"

"Got it!" Rena said.

"Y-yeah!" Kaede said.

Tsuruno, Felicia, Ashley, Yachiyo, Kanagi, and the six girls from Mitakihara pulled back as the reinforcements took over the fighting. They drew back to join Mami, several of them collapsing on the ground from sheer exhaustion. Only Ashley, Komachi, Kanagi, and Liliane remained standing.

"I've… let you see… an unseemly side of myself, Miss Hiyori," Mami murmured. "I'm sorry… for everything…"

"It wasn't your fault, Tomoe-sempai," Hiyori said. "They did something to you… you weren't in control of your actions. We heard everything from Ashley-chan and Madoka-chan, you know."

"Speaking of… where is… Miss Kaname?" Mami asked.

"I actually have no idea," Hiyori said. "She was supposed to meet us at the station, but she never showed up… Miss Akemi is also missing… and Miss Miki, too… Nagisa-chan was worried about them…"

"I remember… Alina locked them up… inside her labyrinth," Mami said. "Someone… someone needs to… release them…"

"Don't worry, Miss Tomoe," Ashley said. "They're probably already free by now. After Miss Sakura met you at Fendt Hope, she went looking for them. They're probably in Kamihama by now."

"Oh… come to think of it, I did mention that in front of her," Mami said. "But thinking back on it, that was so embarrassing… wait, huh? How did you know Kyouko came to Fendt Hope?"

"I know because Inui told me herself, using this," Ashley said.

She took out her communicator and showed it to Mami.

"Um… huh? What is that…? It almost looks like… a very primitive… phone…?"

"You've hit the nail precisely on the head," Ashley said. "It's basically a phone. Or to be more accurate, a short-wave citizen-band radio. I knew the Magius were planning to bring down the cellular network, so I obtained these for backup communication. I gave them to the Crescent Moon Villa team, too."

"So that's why… they seemed a little more… coordinated… than I expected," Mami said. "But it seems… they didn't really use them effectively…"

"You might be right about that," Ashley shrugged.

"Speaking of those," Yachiyo said. "Did you ever try to contact us? We changed the channel on the ones you gave us because we weren't sure how much we could trust you…"

"I didn't have any reason to contact you," Ashley said. "I can't say whether Madoka or any of my other allies would've tried, though, and there's no way to know other than to ask them, I'm afraid. Like Miss Tomoe said, this is a more primitive form of communication. If there's no-one listening when you call, the message will fall on deaf ears. And as you surmised, there's no guarantee that someone you're unaware of isn't listening in… I wouldn't be all that surprised if someone somewhere is very confused by the conversations we've had over this thing. There was no better option though – we couldn't afford not to have some form of communication channel."

"As a matter of fact, I kept an extra communicator tuned to channel twenty-four," Kanagi said. "But I haven't heard anything from it."

"Ah, that's good to know," Ashley said.

"Um, hey… we saw some of these allies of yours show up at the Coordinator's, right?" Tsuruno said.

"Yeah, basically anyone who was from out of town," Ashley said.

"There were quite a few of those, too," Tsuruno said.

"They came from all over," Ashley said. "We actually agreed to meet at Minaminagi Seaside Park, not the Coordinator's, so some of them are doubtless there already. Still, I mentioned I would be at the Coordinator's, so I guess some of them decided to go there first."

"And your goal with all this was…?" Tsuruno said.

"Well, like the Magius, I do want to save magical girls from their fate," Ashley said. "But my primary goal in this was actually Walpurgisnacht herself… I want to defeat her."

"Do you have any ideas on how to save magical girls?" Yachiyo asked.

"I have a few," Ashley said. "I think the concept the original Magius came up with may actually work, which means Tamaki Ui may be the key… but this isn't a good time to discuss it."

"What do you mean by 'original' Magius?" Yachiyo asked.

"I mean before Alina substituted for Ui," Ashley said.

"Wait, so are you saying that Iroha's little sister was originally one of the Magius!?" Yachiyo gasped.

"Well, they weren't called the Magius until after Alina joined though," Ashley said. "You could say they became the Magius because of the substitution… but it was something that couldn't be helped."

As they were discussing that, Momoko, Rena, and Kaede took down the rumour, and the labyrinth collapsed. However, the fighting didn't stop just because the rumour was dead. The feathers seemed determined to fight until they dropped, and the reinforcements held them back to allow the others time to rest. There were also quite a few feathers who had collapsed to the ground though, unable to fight anymore. Most of them were black feathers.

"Miss Yachiyo!" Momoko said. "You okay!?"

"Thank you, Momoko," Yachiyo said. "Is it really alright for you to be here? What about everyone else?"

"They're all fighting the feathers, as you could see if you would just sit up," Momoko said. "The pandemonium's starting and the tide's about to turn soon."

Momoko took out a grief seed and used it to purify Yachiyo's soul gem.

"You brought grief seeds?" Yachiyo said.

"Oh yeah, the Coordinator loaded us up with them," Momoko said.

"Speaking of which," Rena said. "You guys look like you're going to pass out."

She held out a grief seed.

"I owe you one," Kanagi said. "I thought you only ever said cruel things, but I see now you have a kind side too."

"A-are you looking for a fight!?" Rena gasped.

"No, certainly not," Kanagi said.

"Then hurry up and take the damn thing!"

Kanagi accepted the grief seed and used it to purify her soul gem.

"Oh, you're one of those girls," Kanagi said. "I can learn a thing or two from you."

"W-what!?" Rena gasped. "I'm not any particular kind of girl!"

"Take these, Felicia-chan, Tsuruno-chan!" Kaede said.

She gave them both a grief seed, which they used to purify their soul gems.

"Thanks, Kaede!" Tsuruno said. "You really saved us!"

"Seriously, they're frigging weak but there were so many of them," Felicia muttered. "I couldn't bash them all away like in a videogame…"

"Well, of course you couldn't!" Tsuruno said.

"And for you, Miss Taylor," Momoko said, offering Ashley a grief seed.

"Thank you very much," Ashley said. "But I actually don't need one yet. Look, my soul gem's barely even half full. We should save that one in case there's someone who needs it even more."

"Are you sure?" Momoko said. "I have loads. You'd never believe how many Mitama had stashed away."

"Yes, even though there's loads," Ashley said. "You're gonna need all of those plus the hundred I left with Kanna-chi if we want to take down Walpurgisnacht. I should be able to get a grief seed from Alina's pets later, anyway."

Momoko blinked. "W-whoa, what!? You have even more than Mitama!? Wait, is Walpurgisnacht really coming…?"

"I don't want to have to say it twice, so let's save that for when we return to the Coordinator's." Yachiyo said.

"Alright, I'll hold you to that," Momoko said.

"So you say, but it's not like we're going to go back there, right?" Ashley muttered.

Yachiyo turned to the six girls from Mitakihara.

"You should all use a grief seed too," she said.

"Thank you very much," Liliane said. "I think we should be able to manage with just two between us."

"Are you sure?" Momoko said.

"Yes… I'm pretty sure," Liliane said.

Momoko handed them two grief seeds, and true to her words, they were enough to almost fully purify all six of them. There was a little bit of grief left in each soul gem, but it was no more than five percent. Momoko also used one on Mami's soul gem, but she didn't respond. She'd fallen asleep at some point during the fight.

"I do have one question, though," Komachi said. "What are we going to do with all these spent grief seeds? Normally we'd give them to Kyuubey, but…"

"Mitama takes care of them for us here in Kamihama," Yachiyo said.

"No, you can't rely on Mitama for that," Ashley said. "All she was doing was selling them to the Wings of the Magius. She doesn't have a way to dispose of them."

Yachiyo blinked. "Huh? Is that really true…?"

"She didn't mention that to me," Momoko said. "But it's possible, I suppose…"

"Instead, you should give them to Isuzu Ren," Ashley said. "She's also at the Coordinator's right now, and she should be able to obliterate them. Though it'd mean there's no way to extract any further energy from them, I think it's better than risking them hatching again."

"Isuzu Ren," Komachi said. "Okay… we'll do that. Then everyone who has spent grief seeds should give them to us!"

Liliane and her friends went around to gather up the spent grief seeds, and Yachiyo let out a sigh.

"So now all we need to do is take care of Mami," Yachiyo said.

"She hasn't woken up even though we purified her soul gem," Kanagi said.

"It must've been grueling for her," Yachiyo said. "Having her pride shattered and being plagued by guilt…"

"No matter how mature she may be, she's still young," Kanagi said. "I can understand why her emotions were too much for her heart to handle."

"You sound almost like a grandma right now, Miss Kanagi," Ashley said.

"I most certainly do not," Kanagi replied. "That said, I can't blame Tomoe-kun for becoming part of the rumour."

"You did your best, Miss Tomoe," Yachiyo said.

"Yes, she worked very hard," Kanagi said. "The gods will commend her."

"…what gods?" Ashley muttered.

Kanagi ignored her. "A far more glorious fate than being offered up to Eve."

"Yes," Yachiyo said.

"Well, now we gotta get going to where Iroha-chan is!" Tsuruno said. "If the Rumour of the Eternal Sakura's somehow connected to where their base is… we could really turn things around here! Yep, yep!"

"Hell yeah!" Felicia said. "Let's take that whatchamacallitnacht down!"

"Alright then, we'll go along with you too," Momoko said.

"What about the feathers?" Yachiyo asked.

"The other magical girls will keep them busy here," Momoko said.

"Then all we have to worry about is Miss Tomoe," Yachiyo said. "Can anyone here take her to the Coordinator's?"

"I can do it," Nanaka said. "We've met before, so she may be less suspicious of me than a complete stranger."

"Yeah, let us take her," Akira said. "We'll get her to the Coordinator's safe and sound!"

"Okay, if you know her, that's great," Yachiyo said. "Please take good care of her."

"We gladly accept the responsibility," Nanaka said. "Please do what must be done, all of you."

"We will," Yachiyo said. "Thank you."

"Komachi-chan, you and the others will return to the Coordinator's, right?" Ashley said.

"Yeah, that's right," Komachi said. "You're gonna head to Fendt Hope, right?"

"Yes, I'll guide Miss Nanami and her team right to the entrance," Ashley said.

"You'd do that for us?" Yachiyo asked.

"Well, I'm going that way anyway," Ashley said. "Even if the Magius have already learned of my betrayal and taken measures, I have other allies inside who oppose them. Miss Amane even mentioned one of them earlier, not realizing the truth."

"So Miss Itsumi remained on the inside to support you, not because you parted ways," Yachiyo said.

"That's correct," Ashley said. "She also has one of these communicators. I'll contact her on the way there."

She turned to Nanaka and the others who planned to return to the Coordinator's, fishing a scrap of paper out of her pocket.

"If you see Karin-chan when you return to the Coordinator's, could I ask you to pass this message along to her?"

"Then I'll take the message for you!" Riko piped up.

Ashley handed her the paper, and then everyone not planning to head for the Magius's base made for the stairwells. Momoko took a look around. There were many black and white feathers lying unconscious on the ground, but over on the far side, quite a few of them were still fighting back with the desperation of trapped animals. But Hinano was commanding the magical girls opposing them, and it didn't look like there was any chance they could lose – it was only a matter of time. The balance of power amongst the feathers had also shifted. By this time nearly all the white feathers were down, and one of the black feathers had stepped forward to take command. They still fought back with a fierceness borne from desperation.

"Looks like Nanase Yukika has taken command of the feathers," Ashley said. "Even the few remaining white feathers seem to be following her orders…"

"Is that the name of that oddly resilient girl?" Yachiyo said.

"Yeah, I think she gets stronger from being hurt or something," Ashley said.

"That's… quite the problematic ability," Yachiyo said. "In more ways than one…"

"Alright, give me a moment," Ashley said. "There are a few specific feathers I want to locate…"

She took her soul gem out and wandered through the ranks of fallen feathers on the outskirts of the fighting, presumably seeking specific magical signatures. She dragged four black feathers out into an open area and knelt to check on them, pushing their robes aside to check the status of their soul gems.

"No wonder the feathers were able to be so persistent," she muttered. "I haven't used them much myself, but I guess those chain techniques are super magic efficient once you get used to them…"

Then Ashley raised her voice.

"I know you're faking it, Tamura-chan," she said. "Wake up. I have a couple of things I want to say."

"Ugh… do I… have to…?" one of the feathers muttered.

"Yes," Ashley insisted.

"Ugh…"

The feather in question propped herself up a little and turned her head to look at Ashley.

"W-what… do you… w-want?"

"I'd really like to know if you can see anything interesting about how this battle could've gone," Ashley said. "I don't have time to hear it right now, but… please let me know later, alright?"

"F-fine," the girl said.

"Also, the three of you should head for the Coordinator's," Ashley said. "One of you even has family there."

Another of the girls sat up with a start.

"Y-you don't mean…!?"

"Ayano Rika, yes," Ashley said. "You can comfort her or laugh at her, I don't really care, but I bet she'd be grateful to have another familiar face there, even if you're not close."

"Laugh at her… why, exactly?" the girl said.

"Well, because she just found out that magical girls turn into witches."

"Oh, that… huh? Wait, is she a magical girl…?"

"Obviously."

"You're related to Miss Ayano?" Yachiyo asked.

"She's… a cousin," the girl said. "We don't really get along… or see much of each other at all…"

A third one of the feathers that Ashley had collected sat up with a sigh.

"So, um… you said three, not four," she said. "I assume I'm the odd one out…?"

"Yeah, I was hoping you could accompany us back to Fendt Hope," Ashley said. "Is that okay? I won't force you."

"Well… alright, I guess."

"But I suggest ditching the cloak," Ashley said.

"Good point… they'd ask questions seeing one feather with a bunch of regular girls…"

The girl in question leapt to her feet, transforming and banishing her feather cloak at the same moment. Her magical girl outfit was a blue hooded robe that stopped at her knees, with jet-black tights underneath. The hems were decorated with gold embroidery that evoked clocks, and there was a golden hourglass embroidered on her hood. A pure white scarf covered her mouth and exploded from beneath the hood, floating in the air before her as if exempt from gravity. The soul gem on her chest was also in the shape of of an hourglass, a somewhat brighter blue than her robe.

"I guess 'nice to meet you' doesn't quite fit when I just lost a major battle with you but… aww, heck, nice to meet you," she said. "I'm Tomomi Thrussel."

"I'm a bit hesitant to take a feather along with us," Yachiyo said.

"Well, I suppose I should at least ask… can I trust you, Tomomi-chan?" Ashley said. "You did say you were loyal to them in your interview, right?"

"Well honestly, after what the Magius did to us, I've been disillusioned with them," Tomomi said. "And after I said I'm loyal to them, too… I can't believe they did that… huh? Wait, how'd you know what I said in the interview?"

"I hate to break it to you, but they did that because you said you're loyal to them," Ashley said, ignoring the question.

"That just makes it even worse!" Tomomi said. "So yeah, I won't get in your way. In fact, I get the feeling Lita-chan has a special mission for me, so…"

"Lita…?" Yachiyo said.

"Ah, that's the name I went by at the Wings of the Magius," Ashley said. "Technically Emily came up with it but… anyway, it's derived by taking the middle of my full name."

"Well, I sorta expected it wasn't your real name," Tomomi said. "But it feels unfair that you know my name when I don't know yours…"

"I'm Ashley Taylor. You can just call me Ashley… although I don't mind the name Lita either."

"Got it, Ashley-chan!"

"Let's go," Ashley said. "Hmm… with nine of us… flying might be a stretch, huh… guess we'll go the old-fashioned way, roof-to-roof. Follow me."

Rather than taking the stairway, she headed for the edge and leapt to the next roof. Most of the others followed without hesitation, though Kaede needed a bit of prodding. They continued that way, heading north, out of the city proper and into the mountains. Soon they were following a narrow trail.

"So, what's the deal with Walpurgisnacht?" Momoko said. "Everyone keeps saying it's coming…"

"Yeah, it's coming," Ashley said. "The Magius have summoned it by sending out a signal that makes Kamihama seem like a paradise for witches."

"Miss Tomoe mentioned it just before we defeated her," Yachiyo said. "Though it seems Miss Taylor already knew about it."

"What!?" Momoko gasped. "The Magius are really summoning Walpurgisnacht!? I know Miss Taylor said so before, but… it's really true?"

"Um, is that some sort of nickname for a magical girl?" Tomomi asked.

"It's a witch," Momoko said.

"What!?" Tomomi gasped.

"The worst kind, actually," Momoko said.

"Oh nooo!" Kaede gasped. "W-what do we do, Rena-chan!?"

"How should I know!?" Rena asked.

"It seems you got the gist," Yachiyo said. "We're in trouble."

"It's even worse than you're imagining," Ashley said. "I've fought Walpurgisnacht several times before. She's certainly strong, but a group of five or six strong magical girls would be capable of bringing her down with good teamwork and strategy, and an understanding of her weak points. However… that's assuming normal circumstances. What's going on here in Kamihama is far from normal. The Magius are actually trying to make Walpurgisnacht stronger, and with all the Oscars running loose in Kamihama, gathering impurities, I dread the thought of how much stronger she'll become before we can defeat her…"

"What do you mean by 'Oscars'?" Kanagi asked.

"Ah, that's what I call the penguin-like familiars that are everywhere in Kamihama," Ashley said. "You must've seen them. They can be found in any witch's labyrinth, right?'

"Ah… yes, I've seen them," Yachiyo said. "I'd been wondering what witch they came from…"

"They come from Eve," Ashley said. "But the point is… Eve's power is to collect impurities. That's how she can be the centre of the automatic purification system. And those Oscars around town are gathering impurities too, for the purpose of carrying them back to Eve. But they're just weak familiars. When Walpurgisnacht shows up, they're probably going to look like really tasty snacks…"

"I think I get where this is going," Yachiyo said. "Well, it seems you've got the gist. We're in trouble. We'll have to stop them once we meet up with Iroha. Between Eve and Walpurgisnacht, Kamihama could be completely overrun."

"You mean, once you rescue Iroha," Ashley corrected. "She was captured by the Magius just a—"

Suddenly someone leapt out of the darkness to attack them. It was a white feather, accompanied by two black feathers.

"There's more of them!?" Yachiyo gasped.

"Protect this area at all costs!" the white feather said.

"Y-yes!" one of the black feathers replied. "We won't let them get past us!"

"I guess the others let some of the feathers escape," Yachiyo said. "What terrible timing…"

"The other magical girls may be keeping them occupied," Kanagi said. "But the feathers' orders are to return to their base of operations, so…"

"We don't have time to spare to fight them," Yachiyo said. "Not with Iroha in danger…"

Then Mitama stepped out of the darkness behind them.

"Then why don't you leave them to me?" she asked.

"Wha— the Coordinator!?" Momoko gasped. "How'd you get here!?"

"Hozumi Shizuku, presumably?" Ashley said, and Mitama nodded.

"Mitama, you… you're here to fight on the front lines!?" Yachiyo gasped. "Wait, can you even fight!?"

"Not until recently," Mitama said. "But I've started to get the hang of it."

"Honestly, the powers of a Coordinator are pretty scary when you stop to think about it," Ashley said. "I met another girl who seems to have Coordinator potential recently, and she said she has trouble fighting witches but rarely has problems when she's up against magical girls. I sent her north to see Livia, haven't heard from her since…"

Mitama blinked. "You know sensei…?"

"No… I just heard a rumour she was in Sapporo, that's all," Ashley said. "Never met her, only heard of her."

"But even so… are you sure about this?" Momoko asked.

"I've had a bit of a change of heart," Mitama said. "This is an emergency, and I don't want to sit on the sidelines anymore. Oh, and by the way, Miss Taylor… I tuned your friends from America just like you requested. Thanks to that, I think my English might have improved."

"Thanks," Ashley said.

"You're sure we can leave it to you?" Yachiyo asked.

"Yes, I'll be fine," Mitama said. "It's like Miss Taylor said… with these techniques, there's no way I'd lose against weaker magical girls. You go on ahead."

"You aren't going anywhere!" the white feather shouted.

But Mitama stepped forward, conjuring up what looked like a shimmering square of cloth and flicking it at the feather like a net. Though it wasn't clear exactly what had happened, it seemed to be pretty effective, for the feather screamed in pain.

"You're the ones who aren't going anywhere," Mitama said. "Be prepared to have your soul gems stirred up nicely if you intend to fight me."

With Mitama keeping the feathers busy, everyone else was able to pass by them easily. Ashley located the mountain path and led the way. Soon, they spotted an almost-invisible portal with a cherry blossom emblem and stepped inside, finding themselves in a wide grassy plain with a single bare tree in the centre.

"So a rumour really is here," Yachiyo said.

"This must be the rumour of the Eternal Sakura that Tamaki-kun mentioned," Kanagi said.

"It's gotta be," Tsuruno said. "I see a cherry tree over there."

"But I don't see any sign of them," Kanagi said.

"Miss Taylor did say that Iroha was captured," Yachiyo said. "Since her power is clairvoyance, I can believe that could be true… perhaps Miss Futaba is investigating inside in an attempt to rescue her. Let's look for them."

"There's no need," Ashley said. "Look over there."

There was someone else here, a silver-haired, barefoot figure standing at the base of the cherry tree, watching them all in silence.

"Huh!?" Kaede gasped. "Someone's there!"

"A rumour," Kanagi said.

"She doesn't appear to be hostile," Yachiyo said.

"Yachiyo!" Tsuruno said. "That rumour probably saw Iroha-chan and Sana!"

"Hmm, I wonder if she can communicate with us like Ai could," Yachiyo said.

"Yes, I can," the Eternal Sakura said.

Yachiyo gasped.

"Your friend is correct," the Eternal Sakura continued. "I know what happened here."

"Something really happened!?" Yachiyo said. "Then, did you appear before us to…?"

"The magical girl who turns invisible asked me to wait for you," the Eternal Sakura said.

"Whoaaa!" Tsuruno said. "Nice one, Sana!"

"Great, then she can tell us everything!" Felicia said.

"Sorry, but could you answer a few questions for us?" Yachiyo asked.

"Go ahead," the Eternal Sakura said.

"Iroha and Miss Futaba were here, right?" Yachiyo said.

"Yes."

"What happened to them? Did the Wings of the Magius show up?"

"Touka and Nemu, the Magius, found them," the Eternal Sakura said.

"Gah, that's really bad," Felicia said.

"It's just our luck the Magius got here first," Tsuruno sighed.

"They must've been on their way back from the observatory after sending the signal to summon Walpurgisnacht," Ashley said.

"What happened then?" Yachiyo asked.

"Alina arrived and trapped Iroha in a labyrinth," the Eternal Sakura said. "She was taken to Fendt Hope. The magical girl called Sana turned invisible and chased after them."

"Fendt Hope?" Yachiyo said.

"The home base of the Wings of the Magius," Ashley said.

"Your friend is correct," the Eternal Sakura said.

"I see," Yachiyo said. "It's all exactly how Iroha remembered."

"Things could've gone worse," Kanagi said. "I'm relieved that both of them are alright. Could you tell us where to find Fendt Hope?"

"This is my first time coming through here too, so I'm not sure I'd be able to locate it…" Ashley said.

"Over there," the Eternal Sakura said.

She turned to stare at seemingly nothing.

"Over there?" Kanagi said. "It's in the direction you are looking, I take it? So that's where their base is…"

At that moment, Mitama stepped into the barrier.

"Oh my," she said. "So this is what it looks like inside a rumour."

"Mitama…" Yachiyo said.

"I've completed my task," Mitama said. "I did quite well against that many enemies, if I do say so myself."

"Is that so?" Yachiyo asked. "Are you sure you're really okay doing all this? It means you've broken your neutrality."

"With the way things were going, the Magius were bound to find out," Mitama said. "I'd have to choose a side eventually, anyway. I knew I wouldn't be able to avoid it."

"I see," Yachiyo said. "If that's your decision, then I won't say any more."

"But why did you come all the way inside?" Kanagi asked. "You could have waited outside."

"I have something I need to tell you," Mitama said.

"Is it about the Magius?" Yachiyo asked.

"Yes," Mitama said. "They plan to summon Walpurgisnacht to this city."

"Is that all? We already heard that from Miss Tomoe and Miss Taylor," Yachiyo said.

"So, you've already heard about that," Mitama said. "Although I thought you might have, since we discussed it back at my place. That wasn't the main thing…"

"What I wanna know is why the Coordinator knew about Walpurgisnacht," Momoko said.

Mitama sighed. "As a Coordinator, I'm supposed to be a neutral party," she said. "But I'm also willing to provide anything, given the price is right. So I… I was allowed to remain neutral on the surface, and utilize my shop as a base of operations… but, in return, I had to cooperate with them. And I have been, until very recently. That's why I know. They told me all about this in person."

"Mitama…" Yachiyo said. "Then… what did you give them in return?"

"You've never truly been neutral, have you, Miss Yakumo?" Ashley said. "The witch-raising project wouldn't've been so effective without a steady supply of depleted grief seeds, and I wouldn't be surprised if you were helping them study side-effects of doppel release…"

Mitama nodded. "Yes, what they wanted was grief seeds," she said. "Used ones, to be precise. However, they told me they will no longer be needing them, because of Walpurgisnacht."

"So what Miss Taylor said really was true," Yachiyo said.

"So you weren't just enhancing magic," Momoko said. "The stuff we paid you with went straight into the hands of the Wings of the Magius…"

"She had an agreement, much like she did with us," Kanagi said. "I understand your desire to hold her responsible, but she has been fair."

"Huh!?" Rena gasped. "The hell does that mean!? You really expect us to just accept that as an excuse!? I'd understand if she were just enhancing their magic, like she does for us! But this!? This is the same as feeding Eve! If she hadn't made a deal with them… it might've been impossible for them to do it alone! They might've given up!"

Mitama just sighed, not saying anything to defend herself.

"Coordinator," Momoko said. "Does that mean you were pretending you couldn't fight… to manipulate us?"

Mitama gasped. "Momoko! No, I would never!"

"I can vouch for that," Kanagi said. "Yakumo and I have a history together. I actually helped her train to fight."

"Well, we can't trust someone who only joined our side just now," Felicia said.

"But she still decided to help us," Tsuruno said. "Why?"

"The number of Kamihama magical girls will decrease if this continues," Mitama said. "You wouldn't want to lose customers if you were me, would you? Thus ends my neutrality."

"That's… so cold," Kaede said.

"Still, even if that's her reason," Yachiyo said. "It's fortunate that she's no longer neutral. I have all kinds of things I want to say. But we don't have time to waste berating Mitama right now."

"Fair enough," Momoko said.

"You're gonna just leave it at that!?" Rena gasped.

"If we don't hurry, Walpurgisnacht is gonna be here before we can stop it," Momoko said.

Rena groaned.

"Hmm," Felicia said. "The lady in white'll be in trouble if we don't do anything…"

"You mean Mifuyu?" Yachiyo asked.

"Yeah," Felicia said. "She helped me out. Now I gotta help her!"

"I see," Yachiyo said.

Ashley nodded. "Yes, they're planning to feed Miss Mifuyu and the Amane twins to Eve, so it's not just Iroha in need of rescue…"

"If that's true, we really need to hurry," Yachiyo said. "Mitama…"

"Yes?"

"I do think you have the right to do business with anyone, like Kanagi said. So I don't think it's fair for us to lay all the blame on you. However… if you are still willing to stay on our side after all this is over… then you have to tell us more about yourself."

"Alright, I will," Mitama said.

"Shall we go?" Yachiyo said. "We need to save both Iroha and Mifuyu, as well as the Amane twins."

"Yeah we do!" Tsuruno said. "Those twins are actually good people, too! And it'll be a chance for the mightiest to show what she's got!"

"Finally," Tomomi said. "I was starting to get nervous here…"

"By the way… who might you be?" Mitama asked. "You do look a little familiar, but…"

Tomomi summoned her black feather robes, and Mitama blinked.

"Ah…"

Then Tomomi banished the robes again.

"She was one of my… underlings as a white feather," Ashley said. "I asked her to come because I think she can be trusted and because her unique power should prove useful."

"Huh? Wait, how did you know what my unique power is…?" Tomomi asked.

"You told Inui about it, right?" Ashley said. "She passed it on to me."

"Ah, now that you mention it… I guess I might've let it slip," Tomomi said. "This is kinda embarrassing though…"

"But it's an amazing power," I said. "And I truly think it will be useful in the upcoming battle."

"Well… if you say so," Tomomi said.

"Anyway… I know it might not be my place to ask this," Mitama said. "But… please allow me to stand guard here. I won't allow even a single person to get past me."

Yachiyo nodded. "Okay, time to get going," she said.

"You okay, shishou?" Tsuruno asked.

"I was just thinking that even if we make it out of this… there will still be so much to do."

"You can say that again," Ashley said. "This is going to have repercussions well beyond Kamihama…"

"Turning into witches… our fates," Yachiyo said. "We're putting a stop to their plans before coming up with our own solution. But at some point we really need to work out an answer for these problems…"

They headed in the direction the Eternal Sakura indicated until they reached the almost invisible fold in space. From up close however, it looked like a distortion, blending in elements of another location with the current landscape.

"The space here is warped… it must be linked to their headquarters," Kanagi said.

"I believe so," Yachiyo said.

"We're finally getting into their base!" Tsuruno exclaimed. "Yep, yep!"

"Let's meet up with Sana and bust outta there!" Felicia exclaimed. "Hmph! Hmph!"

"We'll do that, and we'll put an end to the Magius's plan," Yachiyo said.

---

"That was quite the fight, huh?" Iroha says. "I'm amazed you managed to last that long, Miss Yachiyo."

"It's all thanks to Mel and Kanae," Yachiyo says. "Now that I've expended the hope they left with me, I probably wouldn't be able to do that again…"

"It's true that magical girls weaken as they get older," I say. "Miss Mifuyu was also worrying about that, right? Miss Nanami was an exception to the rule because of her unique ability to stockpile hope. Still, strength isn't everything. Even if your raw power isn't what it used to be, I bet both of you can work out a way to still take down powerful witches."

"I have noticed my power waning a little as well," Kanagi says. "But I make up for it with training. However, if this continues…"

"Don't worry, there's a limit to it," I say. "According to Pernelle, your power will stabilize in your mid-twenties or so, assuming you live that long."

"Ohh, Miss Pernelle…?" Iroha says. "Does she know a lot about these things?"

"Yeah, she's lived a long time after all," I say. "Plus she's a scientist, so she's studied magic in some detail."

"Huh? Isn't magic and science contradictory?" Iroha asks.

"I don't think I'm a good person to answer that," I say. "Sorry…" Suddenly I blink. "Wait, from how you said that… it almost sounds like you know her…?"

"Well, she did help us out a little when were were fighting Eve," Iroha says. "Come to think of it… huh? Waaait… you and she both mentioned the name 'Tart'… does she have some connection to that mysterious painting…?"

"Yeah, she was involved in that on the sidelines," I say.

"B-but that must mean she's hundreds of years old!" Iroha exclaims. "Or she time-travelled into the future…"

"Yeah, she's hundreds of years old," I say. "Just look her up, you can find her birth date on Wikipedia."

"So she helped us because she recognized me…?"

"Well, you'd have to ask her," I say. "I don't know why she does what she does. But I guess it's a possibility… to be honest, even though she was helping out by providing me with grief seeds, I didn't expect her to actually show herself."

"So you got all those grief seeds from this Miss Pernelle," Yachiyo says. "You didn't hunt that many witches all on your own…"

"That's correct," I say.

Iroha sighs. "Well, we're getting off topic again," she says. "Um, should we get to the battle with Eve next?"

"You're skipping over some things, aren't you?" I say. "Before Eve is the Rumour of the Mother Bear."

"The what?" Iroha says.

"Fendt Hope," I say. "Miss Mifuyu destroyed the rumour, right?"

"Wait, so doesn't that mean it's my turn now?" Inui asks. "You want to know what was happening on the base while everything was going crazy outside, right?"

"You got it," I say.

"Alright, then I'll tell you," Inui says.

---

After the Magius held the assembly in the hall where they activated the rumour to brainwash all the other feathers, those who had rejected loyalty to the Magius had a little meeting of their own in the third floor lounge. Mifuyu was conspicuous by her absence, and the Instructor, Kagura San, appeared to be taking on the role of leader.

Since Ashley was absent due to the need to meet her friends at the airport, Inui, Maria, and Chiyoko gathered around Sue instead, acting like her underlings. She had never actually been assigned any underlings, due to her role as the healer whenever a feather got badly hurt, but the only people who knew that were Mifuyu and Sue, neither of whom were going to say anything.

Besides the rebels and the Instructor, there were an additional four white feathers and nine black feathers. None of those present wore the gold pendant of the Wings of the Magius.

"We are on the final stage of the plan for liberation," San announced. "Soon… by the end of the day, we shall be free of our curse."

"Why are you the one telling us this?" one girl piped up, and Inui recognized Maimai's voice with some surprise. "Shouldn't the Magius themselves be here… or even Miss Mifuyu or Miss Tomoe? And where are all the others?"

"Those are all good questions," San said. "Miss Mifuyu is currently occupied with an essential component of the plan and could not make it. Miss Tomoe is currently leading the other feathers in their role for this stage of the plan. As for the Magius, they have a special mission to take care of, something that only they can do."

"Oh, I see," Maimai said. "Then everyone has their part to play, right?"

"That is correct," San said. "For those here, at present our part is to guard the base in case hostile intruders somehow make it here."

"Huh… we get guard duty?" Maimai said. "That's kinda boring…"

"But we also have the role of unleashing Embryo Eve upon the city," San said. "Since we are a relatively small team, I believe it would be beneficial to be able to refer to each other by name… of course, I don't mean your real names. You all know me as the Instructor already, so that will suffice for my part. Could I ask each of you to present an alias? The white feathers can go first."

"Well, I think most of you know me," Sue said. "I'm Sue. Yes, it's an alias."

"Hmm… you can call me Fuu," one white feather said, with locks of light brown hair peeking out of her hood.

"Just call me Sorashi," said a white feather with short green hair.

"Um… hmm… Konoha will do," said another feather with somewhat longer green hair.

"You can just call me the Reporter," said the feather with long blond hair in a ponytail.

The black feathers then proceeded to name themselves.

Red hair in a braid. "Amu."

Long black hair. "Mana."

Wavy dark brown hair. "Nami."

Yours truly. "Inui."

Seemingly short black hair. "Maimai."

Wavy brown hair of indeterminate length. "Maria."

Short blue hair. "Yu-yu."

Short pink hair. "Kumi."

Medium-length green hair. "Chiyo."

Short green hair. "Aoi."

Long red hair in twintails. "Miyu."

Short wavy blonde hair. "Sal."

"Alright," San said. "Spread out through the base and await orders from myself or the Magius. If there is an alert, check it out. Even though this is a veritable fortress, there could still be unwelcome invaders at this stage. Sorashi, Miyu, you're with me for now. Everyone else, dismissed!"

The two named feathers joined San as she left. Fuu, Konoha, and the Reporter – obviously Midori Ryo – each tagged two black feathers and left with them. That left only the rebels and Maimai in the room, so it was no surprise that Maimai decided to follow them when they headed down to the ground floor lounge to wait.

The front doors had been propped open at some point, probably to allow the brainwashed feathers to easily leave en masse, and no-one had yet removed the wedges to allow them to close again. Inui flopped down on one of the couches, and the other black feathers followed her example. Sue sat down more gracefully in an armchair.

They stayed there for quite awhile, occasionally speculating on what was going on outside. Based on Maimai's comments, Inui was really wondering if perhaps they should have included her in the conspiracy from the start. But she didn't have time to figure out whether or how to open the topic with her, because that was when things finally started to happen.

First the Magius appeared all at once, heading into the annex without so much as a greeting. Alina and Nemu returned a few minutes later and headed down towards the chapel. A bit later, Touka also returned and headed in the same direction. Then the entrance to the chapel was sealed off, and a large bear appeared like a statue guarding it.

Suddenly Konoha appeared from one of the corridors, looking frantic.

"It appears that one of Tamaki Iroha's allies has made it inside," she announced. "We need to split up and find her!"

Inui jumped to her feet, and Chiyoko, Maria, and Maimai followed her example.

"You and you, come with me," Konoha continued, pointing to Maimai and Maria. "We'll search the east wing. The rest of you, investigate the west wing."

"Okay!" Maimai said.

"Understood!" Inui said.

"Okay, I got it," Sue said.

Konoha went back the way she'd come, accompanied by Maimai and Maria, and the three remaining exchanged glances.

"I guess we'd better do as she says," Sue said, getting to her feet. "Let's go. If we do find her, perhaps we can even help her conceal herself better."

Inui nodded. "Yeah, maybe."

The three of them headed in the opposite direction from Konoha, Maria, and Maimai. There was no sign of any intruder, though – Sana's concealment magic was apparently much stronger than the base was able to deal with. They met up with a pair of black feathers who must have received similar orders – Amu and Aoi. The two of them appeared from opposite directions.

"Did you find Futaba Sana!?" Amu asked urgently.

"She isn't over here!" Aoi responded.

"We haven't seen her either!" Sue said.

"Damnit," Amu said. "Maybe she went to a different floor… let's split up again! We have to find her, for the sake of our freedom!"

"Right!" Aoi said.

"You go up, I'll go down," Amu said.

"Would you like some extra hands?" Sue asked.

"That would be very helpful," Amu said.

"Okay… you go up, and you go down," Sue said, pointing first at Chiyoko, then at Inui. "I'll check this floor again."

"Got it!" Inui said.

While Aoi and Chiyoko headed upstairs, Inui and Amu descended into the annex basement, where the prisons were. While searching, they passed by a trio of other feathers, including the Instructor, Kagura San, along with Mana and Kumi.

"So that's where Tamaki Iroha is?" Kumi asked.

"Yes, I heard the Magius have her isolated there," Mana said.

"If worst comes to worst, they'll settle for just her soul gem," San said. "But Lady Alina's demanding that we bring her body, too."

"Do you know what she's going to do with it?" Kumi asked.

"No idea," San said. "I don't get what goes on in their heads any more than you. There's one thing I'm sure of, though. All we can do at this point is use whatever strength we have for our liberation. Remember why we were left back here to guard the base."

"Yes," Kumi said.

Amu rounded a corner, and Inui was about to follow her when she was grabbed from behind and bound with chains.

"Ah," Inui said. "Looks like I found you, Sana-chan."

"T-there!" Sana said. "I caught you! Please tell me where Miss Iroha is!"

"You're asking the wrong feather," Inui said. "Actually, I'm on your side, so if I knew, I would tell you, but unfortunately I don't know where they put her. You should ask one of those ones back there."

"Huh? You're… on my side…? Then… um… you won't scream if I let you go, right?"

"I won't. I'm the one who talked to you guys at the heliport, remember?"

"Ah… yes… I do…"

The chains loosened, and Inui turned to glimpse Sana heading in the direction the trio had gone. A few seconds later, Amu addressed her, and Inui turned to see her poking her head back around the corner.

"Is everything alright?"

"Sorry!" Inui said. "I thought I heard something over there… mind if I check it out?"

"Sure," Amu said. "It's best for us to spread out as much as possible, anyway."

Inui followed Sana, and after rounding a corner, she spotted her hiding behind a large potted plant. Kumi, San, and Mana were just about to round the next corner, so Inui backed away again to make sure she wouldn't me seen.

"Um, e-excuse me!" Sana said. "Could someone help me here?"

"Hm?" San said. "Who's that, now?"

"I'll go check it out," Kumi said. "You go on ahead."

San and Mana rounded the corner while Kumi turned back and headed toward Sana's voice.

"Is something wrong?" Kumi asked.

Sana jumped up from her hiding place.

"Yes!" she said.

Kumi gasped. "I know you!"

Before she could say anything more, Sana summoned chains with a yell and wrapped them around Kumi, binding her tightly so she couldn't move.

"P-please tell me where Miss Iroha is!" Sana said.

"I don't have anything to say to you," Kumi said sternly. "You're standing in the way of liberation."

"So you still trust the Magius?" Sana asked. "Even though they drew all of you feathers into a rumour?"

"I can't deny that happened," Kumi said. "But it's pointless to try and change the mind of those of us left here on the base. We will all work towards liberation, even if the Magius are using us. That is just proof of how dedicated we are to the pursuit of our freedom."

"But…" Sana said.

"I'm fighting for our future," Kumi said. "That is my only desire."

Sana sighed. "T-then, I'm sorry!"

She smashed her shield into the side of Kumi's head, knocking her out instantly. Kumi crumpled to the floor in a heap, and Sana dragged her behind the potted plant and took her robe, putting it on and pulling the hood forward to conceal her face.

"I guess I'm out of options," Sana said. "I have to track down those girls from a moment ago."

Inui followed Sana as she rejoined the others. She kept her distance however, making sure they didn't notice she was there. The group took a stairway down to the second underground floor, which had a different look to it, almost like a dungeon.

"Hey, you," San said after a few moments.

"Meep!?" Sana yelped. "Y-yes?"

"That girl who called out, was she alright?" San asked.

"U-um, yes," Sana said. "She was… she thought she saw Futaba Sana, but it wasn't her."

"I see," San said. "I wish she'd get her act together."

"Sorry," Sana said.

"You're not the one who needs to apologize," San said.

"Um…" Sana said.

"What is it?"

"Miss I— I mean, Tamaki Iroha! Do you know why we need to fetch her? Naturally, I have no idea what's going on in Lady Alina's mind, but… is there any reason we can think of?"

"My only thought is that she's going to be fed to Eve," San said. "Ever since Tamaki Iroha showed up, she's been derailing all of the Magius's plans. Instead of allowing all magical girls to be liberated… she erased rumours and witches alike. It's really no surprise that Lady Alina has had enough of her."

"But that's what was making everyone miserable…" Sana said.

"What did you say?"

"Uh, um, no, I mean… even if that makes everyone miserable, in the end we'll save far more. I can't believe she can't see that."

"It's hard for Tamaki Iroha to come to terms with the act of sacrificing others," San said. "What a hypocrite. She wants to save everyone? Far easier said than done."

"You could wonder about the Magius's plans forever and never figure out anything," Mana spoke up. "Whatever they intended by meddling with the magical girls in Kamihama… as well as what plans they have for Tamaki Iroha once they bring her in… all of that is for the Magius to know, and for us to simply obey."

"Y-yes… of course," Sana said.

A short time later, they reached the cell where Iroha was being kept.

"Tamaki Iroha, we're here to take you in," San said.

"What are you going to do to me?" Iroha asked, glaring at them.

"We don't know," San said. "It's the Magius who want you." She sighed as she took out a key. "All you can do is glare at us in disdain. Pathetic."

"There has to be something I can do," Iroha muttered.

Mokyu made one of its cute noises, startling Inui a little. She ducked behind the corner as Mana glanced back, then peeked out again.

"I dunno," Iroha muttered. "Even if they unlock the cell, the only way out is the direction the feathers came from…"

"You can look for a place to run all you want," San said. "You won't find one. And there's no-one coming to help you, either."

"That's not true," Iroha said.

"What confidence!" San said. "Do you even understand where you are?"

"I'm in the Wings of the Magius's base," Iroha said. "That's why I know someone's coming… they're definitely on their way! And I know there are those among you who are discontent, too…"

"If you mean Ashley Taylor, she's already been branded a traitor," San said. "She won't be able to get back in again."

"Not just her!" Iroha said. "Everyone is determined to stop the Magius's plans."

"The more you try to convince yourself of that, the more your powerlessness amuses me," San said.

"You're wrong!" Sana exclaimed. "This is not amusing!"

"What!?" San gasped.

"Huh?" Iroha said.

"I'm here, Miss Iroha!" Sana said. "I want to stop the Magius, too!"

Sana shed the feather robes on the floor.

"Sana-chan!" Iroha gasped.

"She infiltrated us!?" San gasped.

"Wait right there!" Sana said. "I'm coming to rescue you!"

"Clever little…!" San said. "Ugh… you! Take the key and call for help!"

"Roger!" Mana said,

San tossed the key to Mana, who turned and ran off. Inui ducked into an empty cell to hide as Mana ran by, then peeked out again. San had banished her feather robes and summoned her gatling guns, but Sana had her shield up, blocking the bullets perfectly. The moment San stopped firing, Sana struck with her chains, binding her so she couldn't move, then swung the shield hard at her head. San dropped to the ground, unconscious, leaving Sana panting a little.

"Sana-chan!" Iroha said. "Are you okay!?"

"I'm fine!" Sana said. "Come on, Miss Iroha, let's get out of here! I asked the Rumour of the Eternal Sakura to pass on a message for us. I'm sure Miss Yachiyo and the others will be here any minute!"

"So they're coming," Iroha said. "Sana-chan, thank you so much! I lost the communicator when I was captured, though… so I have no way to contact them… oh, and what about the key?"

"Breaking out should be no problem for your magic," Sana said.

"I can't use it," Iroha said. "I don't have my soul gem."

"What!?" Sana gasped.

"So, I can't transform," Iroha said.

"How could they!?" Sana said. "That's your life!"

"Do you think you could break the cell walls?" Iroha asked. "We need to hurry and get my soul gem back!"

As Inui stepped up to join them, Iroha spotted her.

"H-huh!?" she gasped. "Sana-chan, behind you!?"

Sana turned to face Inui, who held up her hands.

"Don't worry, I'm not the reinforcements," Inui said, pushing her hood back. "Go ahead and break her out, but be ready for combat."

"Ah!" Iroha gasped. "Miss Itsumi…?"

"Y-yes, of course!" Sana said. "I'll do it! Stand back!"

"Got it!" Iroha said.

Sana raised her shield over her head, gripping it like a hammer.

"Here… goes!" Sana said.

She swung it down on the bars, smashing the cell open.

"Okay!" Sana said. "Let's get out of here, Miss Iroha!"

"Thanks!" Iroha said.

"Not yet," Inui said. "According to Miss Taylor, the rumour will show up if you break things…"

As she explained that, the rumour's barrier sucked the three of them in.

Iroha gasped. "Sana-chan! Watch out!"

"Huh?"

A small bear head popped out and attacked Sana with the spike on the top of its head, causing her to squeal.

"I guess my warning came too late," Inui said. "Sorry…"

"This is a rumour… it showed up because we broke the cell?" Sana said.

"Rumours show up when you disobey their rumours," Iroha said. "Hold on, does that mean this entire building is a rumour!?"

"That's right," Inui said. "Sorry I can't help you… I'm sure it would recognize me as an enemy if I attacked it, and I need it to recognize me as an ally for a little longer."

The bear head leapt at Sana again, but this time she blocked the attack with her shield.

"It's going to be alright!" Sana said. "I'll act as your shield!"

"Sorry, Sana-chan," Iroha said. "Thanks!"

"It's the least I can do to pay you back!" Sana said. "I'll get rid of this thing, and then we can go and get your soul gem back!"

She lashed out with her chains while talking. The bear head was fairly agile, but it couldn't dodge every single attack. After landing four or five hits, the rumour was defeated, and the barrier collapsed.

"So the reason I showed myself is because I happened to overhear that you lost your communicator," Inui said. "I have one too, so I should be able to get a message to Ashley… and if things are going as she planned, she might even be with Miss Nanami already."

"Oh! That would be great!" Iroha said. "Um… you are Miss Itsumi, right?"

"Good guess!" Inui said. "What should I tell them?"

"Just let them know where we are in the building," Iroha said. "And warn them that the Magius are planning to summon Walpurgisnacht!"

"Ah, Ashley already knows about that," Inui said. "But I'll pass on your general location."

"Really!?" Iroha gasped. "You knew they were summoning it but you didn't try to stop it!?"

"Ashley wanted it to be summoned too," Inui said. "Just for different reasons. We plan to destroy it once and for all. I admit, it's unfortunate that the city will take a lot of damage from it, but at least the people will be evacuated, and buildings can always be rebuilt."

"Oh I see… and… do you know where they're keeping my soul gem?"

"I'm not sure," Inui said. "Ashley guessed it would be on the top floor somewhere, but it was just a guess, and even if it was there, there's no guarantee it still is. So, it might be pretty difficult to find… but if you run into any of the people I'm working with, they'll do their best to help. You may also run into Miss Sakura, who joined a few days ago. She's not technically with us, but Ashley said she'll probably be willing to help you as well. I can't accompany you, I'm afraid, because I'd like to keep my cover up for as long as possible, at least until Ashley arrives… but I'll follow you from a distance as far as the main floor."

"Okay, thanks," Iroha said.

"Miss Iroha!" Sana said. "Let's go!"

"Right!" Iroha said.

Inui watched them go before kneeling to check on San. Their voices wafted back to her, echoing through the corridors.

"I'm glad that girl had an idea of where they're storing your soul gem," Sana said.

"Yeah… I had no idea where it was," Iroha said.

"We'd better start heading upstairs," Sana said.

The Instructor seemed fine, just unconscious, so Inui turned to follow Iroha and Sana, maintaining as much distance as she could.

"Yeah," Iroha said. "But… if Miss Yachiyo and the others are headed here, it's best we go outside to meet them… it'll be easier for them to find us."

"Oh, you're right, it'd be safer than searching on our own," Sana said. "Oh! N-no!"

"Huh?" Iroha said.

"I heard from that white feather," Sana said. "That the Magius might be planning to feed you to Eve."

"Feed me to Eve!?" Iroha gasped.

"Yes! And they said that in the worst case scenario, they'd settle for just your soul gem. If those feathers who came to your cell were taking you to the Magius… they might already be transporting your soul gem over."

"But wait," Iroha said. "They can't just feed Eve a soul gem… wait, no. A magical girl's life is inside her soul gem. That's all they need. Then I have no choice… I have to…"

Mokyu interrupted with one of its cute noises, and Iroha nodded.

"Right! I have to prioritize my soul gem! We don't have time to meet up with the rest of the team!"

"Let's find those feathers!" Sana said.

"But Miss Yachiyo and the others…"

"Telepathy doesn't work in here, we both lost the communicators, and we can't sense anyone's magic, either," Sana said. "It would probably be really hard for us to all meet up."

"Then finding my soul gem takes priority for now," Iroha said.

"Right!" Sana said. "We have to focus on your life first, Miss Iroha!"

"Sorry, can I count on you to protect me for just a bit longer?" Iroha asked.

"Of course you can!" Sana said. "I said I would, didn't I? I'll act as your shield."

At that moment, Mana's voice echoed back down the corridor from somewhere around the stairs, and Sana seized Iroha's hand, using her stealth magic. Inui was unable to focus on them after that, but she ran in the direction of Mana's voice and spotted her at the top of the stairs..

"They have taken Tamaki Iroha!" Mana shouted. "We are requesting urgent backup! We believe Nanami Yachiyo is also on her way to Fendt Hope!"

Someone must have responded, for Mana nodded as if she'd understood something.

"Alright! We'll also need people on the outside…"

"What's going on…?" Inui asked.

"Ah!" Mana said. "Did you see them!?"

"Did I see… who exactly…?"

"Futaba Sana and Tamaki Iroha!"

"N-no, I haven't seen them… I was looking for Miss Futaba though, did you see her?"

"She just took down the Instructor and broke Tamaki Iroha free!" Mana said. "It's now even more urgent to find her!"

"She defeated the Instructor!?" Inui gasped.

"She had the element of surprise and caught her off guard," Mana said. "It could've happened to anyone. We need to keep searching! You check upstairs, I'll scour this floor!"

"Right!"

Inui headed upstairs while Mana ran off down the corridor. Pausing about halfway up the stairs, Inui took out her communicator to contact Ashley.

"Inui here. Are you there, Ashley?"

There was a moment's delay before Ashley's voice issued from the communicator.

"I'm here. What's going on?"

"Miss Tamaki has been broken out by Miss Futaba," Inui said. "They're hunting for her soul gem."

"Understood," Ashley said. "If possible, try to support her from the shadows, but don't endanger yourself. I'm almost there, along with Miss Nanami and the others. Ashley out."

Back on the main floor, Inui met back up with Sue.

"There's seriously no sign of her," Sue said. "Her stealth magic is incredible, to still work even in this place…"

"You can say that again!" Inui said. "Miss Tamaki is really lucky to have an ally like her…"

---

"That's quite interesting," Iroha says. "I didn't expect that there'd be a small group of feathers who weren't even affected by that terrible rumour…"

"Ashley knew what they were planning," Inui says. "So we were all able to carefully give the answer they were looking for, allowing us to join that group."

"But there's one thing I don't understand," Iroha says. "What about Tomomi-chan? Why didn't you tell her about it as well?"

"Well, I didn't have proof that I could trust her," I say. "So I played it safe. The same goes for Tamura-chan and her friends, and Maimai as well."

"Though Miss Maimai must have given the correct answer by chance," Iroha says.

"I'm not sure if you could call it chance, but basically," I say.

"Still, if you didn't have proof that you could trust Tomomi-chan, why did you ask her to accompany you after the battle at the helipad?" Iroha asked.

"Well, at that point the idea hit me that her power might allow us to avoid being separated when the soldier bear used its breath attack, so I thought I'd test her feelings," I say. "And, well, you know how that went… anyway, why don't we continue the story from your perspective, Miss Tamaki."

"Right," Iroha says, nodding. "Um, so… just after Sana-chan broke me out, right?"

"Yeah, right around there," I say.

---

"So… what you said earlier about Walpurgisnacht," Sana said. "What is that?"

"Walpurgisnacht is the name of a witch," Iroha said. "I don't know much more than that… but it's supposed to be an especially strong one."

"Then the Magius's goal is…"

"Yeah, they said they want to summon that witch," Iroha said.

"I don't think the black or white feathers know about that," Sana said. "Most of them, at least – Miss Itsumi clearly knew – but the others just told me that they've entrusted themselves to the Magius completely."

"Oh," Iroha said. "If they knew they were being used to summon the most awful witch… I wonder how they'd react… I just don't get it. Why would they summon a witch that could obliterate the entire city?"

"How are they even going to use it?" Sana asked.

"I don't know," Iroha said. "I don't really know anything about Eve or Walpurgisnacht. But if they're using the worst witch to make Eve hatch, it must be really dangerous."

"Yes," Sana said. "Maybe Touka-chan and Nemu-chan will put a stop to it if they get their memories back… do you think that's possible?"

"I do," Iroha said. "That's what I really want to happen. But I have no idea how to help them remember. All we can do now is fight. Once we put a stop to the Magius's plans, we have to prepare ourselves… to confront the worst of all witches."

Suddenly they were spotted by a black feather with long black hair, the one Inui identified as Mana.

"There she is!" Mana called. "Everyone, she's over here! She's already broken out of her cell!"

Mana was quickly joined by two more by black feathers. One was the one with reddish-brown hair in a braid, who Inui identified as Amu. The other was a girl with green hair, who Inui identified as Aoi.

"That's Futaba Sana!" Amu said.

"Finally, we found her!" Aoi said.

"That black feather is the one who ran off with the key," Iroha said.

"And the reinforcements are some of the ones who were looking for me earlier! Miss Iroha, stay back! I'll clear a path!"

The three feathers attacked all at once, using their chain attacks. Sana squealed as she hid behind her shield.

"Sana-chan!" Iroha said.

"It's okay!" Sana said. "I can still fight, don't worry!"

"But!"

Three opponents was a bit too much for Sana to hold off. While Amu and Aoi continued to attack her, Mana darted around her to reach Iroha, grabbing her by the arm and twisting it behind her back so she couldn't readily squirm free.

"I've got you now!" Mana said.

"Oh no…" Iroha gasped.

"Miss Iroha!" Sana gasped.

"Now, be quiet and come with us," Mana said.

"Why would I go with you!?" Iroha asked, trying in vain to break free. "That'd just be putting myself in danger!"

"Then I'll make you!" Mana said.

She swung her chain at Iroha's face, and Iroha squealed as she attempted to bat it away.

"Are you really okay with all this!?" Iroha asked. "The Magius have your lives in the palm of their hands."

Mana gasped. "What are you talking about?"

Thanks to Mana being startled, Iroha was somehow able to free herself and put some distance between her and Mana, who immediately swung her chain to try and capture her again. Iroha was able to dodge it, however.

"You're trusting people who sacrifice their allies… with your lives," Iroha said. "I understand what the Wings of the Magius are trying to achieve and its significance. But what happens afterward? How will they treat you?"

"I've accepted that risk," Mana said.

"Is it because you've gone this far for them?" Iroha asked. "Retreating now would make it all a waste?"

"Yes," Mana said. "The feathers here have sworn their allegiance to liberation more than the Magius. And in the same vein… we have faith in whatever she believes in. She… Miss Mifuyu protected us."

She swung her chain at Iroha again, who only barely dodged this time, the chain clipping her elbow.

"Miss Iroha, this way!" Sana called.

"Sana-chan!" Iroha gasped.

While she had been talking to Mana, Sana had managed to bind the other two with her chains. They were sitting on the ground, struggling to get free.

"We need to leave now!" Sana said.

"Y-yes!" Iroha said. "All I wanted was my soul gem back, but I guess I have no choice but to run for now."

She kicked Mana in the stomach and managed to get free, joining Sana as they fled down the corridor. Mana knelt to free the other two.

"It's useless running from us!" Amu said.

"I called for backup!" Mana said. "They're not going to get away from us!"

"Are you okay, Miss Iroha?" Sana asked.

"Yes," Iroha said.

After running for a bit, Mana managed to catch up and seize Sana's hand.

"Caught you!" she said, panting.

"Oh no…" Sana said. "What do we do?"

"You two, focus on capturing Tamaki Iroha!" Mana said.

"I'll back you up!" Aoi said.

"Leave this to me!" Amu said.

"Guess I'll support this side, then," a new voice said from around the corner.

Following her words, Kyouko stepped into view, casually resting her spear on her shoulder.

---

"Right, I don't think I got a chance to thank you properly, Miss Sakura!" Iroha speaks up. "You showed up at just the right time!"

"There's no reason to thank me," Kyouko retorts. "It's not like I was there to save you, and besides, I didn't exactly do a bang-up job of it, now did I?"

"That's not true!" Iroha says. "It was honestly a huge relief just to see a familiar face! That goes for you too, Miss Itsumi."

"Eh? Me?" Inui says. "Can you really call me a familiar face though…? I mean, we'd only met twice by that point…"

"Even so, you didn't attack us on sight," Iroha says.

"Well, that's true…"

"Besides, I'd only met Miss Sakura once before that…"

"Anyway, Miss Sakura, would you mind picking up the narrative from here?" I ask.

"Huh? Me?" Kyouko says. "Why do I gotta do it?"

"Didn't you get separated from Miss Tamaki again not long afterwards?" I say. "I'll ask for Miss Tamaki's side too, of course, but first I'd like to hear your experiences after first meeting up with her at the base."

"Fine, whatever," Kyouko grumbles.

---

Iroha gasped at the sight of Kyouko, and the three black feathers also seemed startled for a moment. Then the one Inui identified as Mana challenged her.

"W-who's there!?"

"I swear, the second I got outside I saw a bunch of feathers gone rabid," Kyouko said. "And now, just when I thought things had calmed down, there's a fight on the base? This town never chills out, does it?"

"A-and you are?" Sana asked.

"Miss Sakura!?" Iroha gasped.

"O-oh!" Sana gasped.

"Who thought we'd see each other again in a place like this?" Kyouko said.

"You must be the latest recruit," Aoi said. "Assist us in capturing Tamaki Iroha. That is an order from the Magius."

"Don't y'all ever think for yourselves?" Kyouko asked. "It's always the Magius this, the Magius that, on and on and on!"

"What…?" Aoi gasped.

"I joined just to see what was up," Kyouko said. "But you're either spouting things that're being fed to ya… or just trying to take advantage of people's misery. So yeah, this just ain't my kind of scene. In fact, y'all kinda piss me off."

"You're betraying us?" Aoi said.

"Do you really need me to answer that?" Kyouko asked.

"Miss Sakura…!" Iroha said.

"I ain't here to help you guys out," Kyouko said. "I'm just here to kick the spit out of these jerks, cause I can't stand them. C'mon, shield girl! Help me out here!"

"O-okay!" Sana said.

With a little help from Sana, Kyouko knocked out the three feathers in no time flat.

"Looks like that's the last of them," she said.

"Thank you, Miss Sakura," Iroha said.

"No need to thank me," Kyouko said.

"U-um… she said you were a feather," Sana said.

"Yeah, I was having something of an orientation," Kyouko said. "But I wasn't into it, so I flipped sides. That's all."

"Are you… one of Miss Taylor's group…?" Sana asked.

"Miss Taylor…? I ain't got nothing to do with her, sorry. I go alone."

"So you were fighting them alone all this time?"

"Oh, no, I only just switched over now," Kyouko said. "Until then I was scouting for soul gems."

"R-really!?" Iroha gasped. "We were actually looking for a soul gem too."

"Yeah, I can tell," Kyouko said. "You're the only one running around without transforming."

"R-right," Iroha said.

"So you know where they are?" Sana asked. "The soul gems…"

"I did know, yeah," Kyouko said.

"Did?" Iroha said.

"So you don't know anymore?" Sana said.

"Yeah," Kyouko said. "By the time I got there, they'd already moved them somewhere else."

"I was afraid of that," Sana said. "Do you know where the Magius are now?"

"Why do you wanna know?" Kyouko asked.

"The feathers are transporting the soul gems on the Magius's orders," Sana said. "They were about to take Miss Iroha, too…"

"So that's why you're having a little prison break," Kyouko said. "I see now. They're planning on taking care of you, Mifuyu, and those flute feathers in one go."

"Miss Mifuyu?" Iroha said

"It looks like she resisted them after I left their base," Kyouko said. "They have her locked up somewhere."

"I had no idea," Iroha said.

"As for where those Magius creeps are lurking," Kyouko said. "Heck, even I don't know that. Guess all we can do is ask those feathers."

"Right," Iroha said. "Huh…?"

"Miss Iroha?" Sana said.

"Um, I… Sana…"

Suddenly, for no apparent reason whatsoever, Iroha collapsed.

"Miss Iroha!" Sana gasped.

"This ain't good!" Kyouko said.

Sana knelt beside Iroha to check on her, calling her name, but there was no response. It looked like she'd even stopped breathing.

"W-what…?" Sana gasped. "Oh no. She isn't breathing!"

Suddenly, Amu leapt up from the ground and attacked them both, dragging Iroha away with a chuckle and using her body as a shield.

"Now there's no way you can fight back," Amu said. "I'll be taking her."

Amu dragged Iroha and the other two feathers away down the hall.

"Crap!" Kyouko said.

"M-miss Iroha!" Sana called.

They made to follow, but suddenly a wrought iron gate fell from the ceiling, blocking their path. Another one just like it fell behind them, and they saw more similar gates dropping into place as the feathers progressed down the corridor, right up until they turned a corner and vanished from sight.

"No!" Sana gasped.

"Dammit!" Kyouko said. "All we can do is bust through and chase after them!"

"W-what just happened…!?" Sana asked. "Miss Iroha, she was… she seemed like she was… dead!"

"This isn't the time to go into shock, got it!?" Kyouko shouted.

"B-b-but she…!" Sana wailed.

"She got too far from her soul gem!" Kyouko said. "She'll wake up once she gets it back!"

"A-are you sure…?" Sana asked.

"What reason do I got to lie?" Kyouko retorted.

"T-then they must've taken Miss Iroha's soul gem further away," Sana said.

"They probably took a detour on purpose so she wouldn't be able to fight back," Kyouko said. "Still, both her body and her soul gem are gonna end up wherever the Magius are. She'll eventually wake up."

"Because our soul gems are where our lives are kept," Sana muttered.

"You got it," Kyouko said. "Anyway, let's smash through this place and chase her down! If we lose sight of her for too long, we'll never track down where the Magius are!"

"O-okay!" Sana said. "I'll be fine as long as Miss Iroha stays alive! It doesn't matter how many rumours spring up in my way! I'll get Miss Iroha back!"

"There, that's the spirit!" Kyouko said. "I'll be right there with ya!"

One after another, they broke through the gates, destroying the bear-head rumours that showed up to attack them each time. After the fourth or fifth gate, Kyouko started to conplain.

"How many of these blockades did those feathers toss in our way!?" she exclaimed. "It's gonna take us way too long to get to the surface like this."

"But if we just figure out where the Magius are," Sana said.

"By prowling around in here?" Kyouko snapped. "Get real. Even if we find them, there's only two of us. No way I'm throwing my own life away for someone. I'm no bleeding heart."

"Then I'll fight my way there by myself!" Sana said.

Kyouko chuckled. "I like your spirit," she said. "You've got guts. Still, this is their territory. Don't expect them to just roll over and let you win."

At that moment, the latest batch of bear heads popped out, and Sana attacked them with her chains, holding them in place.

"Miss Sakura! Now!"

"Great timing, Sana! I'll knock them all out!"

Kyouko split herself in three and attacked them all at once with her spears. They popped after just a few hits, and the rumour's barrier dissipated once more. Finally, they stepped through the hole in the gate to find that there were no more to break through.

"There, that was the last one," Kyouko said.

"Now we can get up to the surface," Sana said.

They found the stairs heading up, and ascended to the ground floor, looking around and wondering where to go from there.

"Well, we lost sight of them," Kyouko sighed. "You really think we have a chance of finding them now?"

Sana looked around, peering up and down the three corridors that extended from their current location. Suddenly she spotted something on the floor down one of the corridors – a narrow blue ribbon, almost invisible against the green floor.

"Wait," Sana said.

"Huh? What's up?" Kyouko asked.

"On the floor over there," Sana said.

They headed over to check it out. There was another intersection here, with a corridor leading towards the centre of the building. Sana knelt down to pick up the ribbon and nodded.

"It's Miss Iroha's school uniform ribbon," she said.

"Her ribbon?" Kyouko said, laughing. "Well, how about that? She did good. She left us a little clue to follow her by!"

"So Miss Iroha is somewhere straight ahead from here!" Sana said.

"Looks like it," Kyouko said. "Let's get going, Sana!"

"You're going to come with me?" Sana asked.

"I'd planned on making a run for it, but it's not actually that rough here yet," Kyouko said. "Once it starts feeling dangerous, I'll come up with an exit route for myself."

"Thank you," Sana said.

"We have the same enemies, so hey," Kyouko said with a shrug.

As they headed along the corridor where the ribbon was found, a white feather with silver hair emerged from a stairwell – the same feather Sana had defeated earlier, the Instructor.

"That's… Futaba Sana and the new girl!" the Instructor said.

"Damn, they found us already," Kyouko said.

"Give up on looking for Tamaki Iroha," the Instructor said. "I just received news that our allies have already taken her in."

"Yeah, yeah, tell us something we don't know," Kyouko said.

As before, the Instructor broke out her gatling guns, while Sana planted her shield in front of them as an absolute defence.

"Damn," Kyouko said. "This chick's got quite the firepower… but it ain't enough to stop the likes of me!"

After crouching behind Sana for several seconds, Kyouko leapt right over Sana's head and thrust her spear at the Instructor. Startled, the Instructor let up her fire and dodged, but then Sana flung out chains, curving around Kyouko to seize the Instructor's feet and yank them out from under her. Kyouko then planted a foot on the Instructor's chest and stabbed her spear into the ground right next to the Instructor's neck.

"Ugh," the Instructor said. "You just… won't give up…"

"I'm going to wherever Miss Iroha is and saving her!" Sana said.

"And that means we're gonna have you clear the way!" Kyouko said.

"Yes!" Sana said.

Leaving the Instructor on the ground, they hurried on down the corridor.

---

We stepped through the fold in space and emerged into the grounds of Hotel Fendt Hope. The fold came out at the side of the building, so we made our way around to the front where the entrance was, stopping by the fountain to gaze up at it.

"Well, this is surprising," Momoko said.

"Is this… Hotel Fendt Hope?" Kaede asked.

"It sure is!" Tomomi said. "Isn't it huge?"

"I thought it was weird when we saw the entrance," Rena said. "It's like a castle… sure is nothing like any hotel I know. Looks more like somewhere a princess would live."

"A princess?" Kaede said.

"T-that's just the first thing that came to mind!" Rena protested. "Quit acting like it means anything!"

"But I didn't even say anything!" Kaede protested.

"Maybe they were going for some kind of old castle feel for the hotel?" Momoko suggested.

"Well, I think all three of the Magius are from wealthy families, so they probably modelled it after the sort of thing they were used to," I said.

"Never mind how it looks," Yachiyo said. "We have to find the Magius inside that gigantic building."

"We'll have our work cut out for us, tracking down Tamaki-kun and Futaba-kun, too," Kanagi said.

"And don't forget Mifuyu and the flute sisters!" Tsuruno said.

"I already know where the Magius are," I said. "Unfortunately, we can't get to them just yet… so we should focus on finding Miss Tamaki first, and also rescuing Miss Mifuyu and the twins."

"Time for me, the mightiest magical girl, to step in!" Tsuruno announced. "I'll use my super Tsuruno senses to detect where Iroha-chan and Sana-chan are!"

She scrunched up her face and focused for a few moments.

"Whoooooooa? Nope, nothing!" Tsuruno said.

"Hm, despite being the mightiest, too," Kanagi said.

"Yeah, even I couldn't sense them!" Tsuruno said.

"So you do fail every now and then," Yachiyo said.

"You just gotta do it like you always do it," Felicia said.

She tried too, and blinked.

"Huh? Oh, you weren't kidding! I don't sense a thing."

"We can't even use telepathy," Momoko said.

"I tried too, and it didn't work," Kaede said.

"More to the point, I can't sense any kind of magic here," Rena said. "There are this many magical girls gathered in one place, but nothing. Way too weird."

"The building itself may have been designed to achieve this effect," Yachiyo said.

"Sealing away your enemy's advantages," Kanagi said. "A double-edged sword, but possible."

"What can we do, though?" Kaede asked. "If we just stay here, Iroha-chan and Sana-chan might…"

"It won't be an easy feat to find them, just as Kanagi said," Yachiyo said.

"Actually, that's why we have the communicators," I said. "You should switch yours over to the same channel as mine if you want to be able to keep in touch with me… though I don't really mind if you prefer not to. Also… Tomomi-chan, you're probably still registered as an ally. Can you sense Miss Tamaki anywhere? Or Miss Sakura?"

"Um… Miss Sakura is… that red-haired girl who only joined yesterday, right?" Tomomi said. "And Miss Tamaki is one of the ones who destroyed the rumour we were guarding…"

"That's right," I said.

Tomomi closed her eyes for a moment, then nodded.

"Miss Sakura seems to be… underground…? And Miss Tamaki… it seems like she's moving around in the east wing…?"

"You can sense that much!?" Felicia gasped.

"Well, the base is tuned to put invaders at a disadvantage," I said. "It seems they've already adjusted it to consider me hostile too, because I can't sense a thing either… but Tomomi-chan never publicly betrayed them, so she's still registered as an ally and can sense magic and use telepathy. Speaking of which, can you get in touch with Inui?"

"I'll try," Tomomi said.

She focused for a moment, then shook her head.

"No… she must be out of range," she said. "Sorry."

"That's fine," I said.

At that moment, Inui's voice issued from my communicator.

"Inui here. Are you there, Ashley?"

I fished out my communicator and pressed the speak button.

"I'm here. What's going on?"

"Miss Tamaki has been broken out by Miss Futaba," Inui's voice said. "They're hunting for her soul gem."

"Understood," I said. "If possible, try to support her from the shadows, but don't endanger yourself. I'm almost there, along with Miss Nanami and the others. Ashley out."

Before putting my communicator away again, I flicked the switch to turn it off entirely, because an idea had just struck me that required radio silence.

"So um… w-what do we do now?" Tomomi asked.

"We'd better split up and search!" Felicia said.

"Hmm… Tomomi-chan, could you put your feather robes back on and pretend you've captured me?" I suggested. "If you do that, I'm sure they'll send you straight to where Miss Mifuyu and the Amane twins are being held. Then I can either rescue them or at least let the others know the location."

"I think I could… what about the others?"

"Unfortunately, we don't know how many feathers are lying in wait," Yachiyo said. "They could be trying to ambush us like they did when they tried to wipe us out before."

"There's not that many left on the base," I said. "Fewer than thirty, I think… and that's including my allies. I'm not sure how many might've returned from the city already, but it can't be that many, especially with Miss Yakumo watching the entrance."

"So what are we supposed to do!?" Felicia asked. "I hate just sitting around here like this!"

"We should all storm the base at full power!" Tsuruno said.

"Well, even if we split up, we won't be able to make more than two teams," Kanagi said.

"Um, we have incoming any moment now," Tomomi said. "I'll do as you said!"

She donned her black feather robes, and I powered down.

"Okay, I'll take care of locating Miss Mifuyu and the twins," I said. "You focus on finding Miss Tamaki and her soul gem."

Then I let Tomomi seize me and drag me into the main building, just as three feathers emerged into the lobby – Konoha, Yumi, and Nami. I closed my eyes, feigning unconsciousness and letting Tomomi drag me along the ground.

"U-um, I managed to capture Ashley Taylor somehow!" she announced.

"Excellent work!" Konoha said. "Have you taken her soul gem yet?"

"A-ah! S-sorry, I forgot!"

Tomomi knelt down to remove the ring from my finger, slipping it into her pocket.

"S-so, um… what should I do with her?" Tomomi asked.

"Take her upstairs, to the seventh floor," Konoha said. "Speak to either Sorashi or the Instructor. They'll know what to do with her."

"G-got it!" Tomomi said.

"By the way, were you followed back?" Konoha asked.

"U-um, well… I think… I might have been followed," Tomomi says. "Sorry… but I thought bringing her here was more important."

"Then we'll go take care of them," Konoha said. "Don't worry, you did the right thing. Hurry up and get Miss Taylor into custody before she wakes up!"

"Y-yes!" Tomomi said.

The other three feathers headed outside, leaving Tomomi and me alone. I opened my eyes and picked myself up.

"May I have my soul gem back?" I asked.

"Ah, y-yes, of course," Tomomi said.

Tomomi fished it out again, and I took it and stashed it in one of my own pockets.

"S-so now what?" Tomomi asked.

"Let's go upstairs, like they suggested," I said. "You can still sense magic, right?"

"Y-yeah," Tomomi said.

"Then let me know if you sense someone nearby, and I'll pretend to be knocked out again."

"G-got it!"

We ascended a few flights of stairs until we reached the second lounge, where Tomomi warned me there were other feathers, so I feigned unconsciousness again. Suddenly a vaguely familiar voice called out.

"H-hey! Isn't that Miss Lita!? But she's one of us, isn't she…?"

That voice was Maimai.

"C-calm down, Maimai!" another voice piped up. "There could be a reason for this… why not let this girl explain herself?"

That was Yuki Maria's voice.

"U-um… w-well…" Tomomi said hesitantly. "S-supposedly she betrayed us…"

"Oh," Maria said. "How did you manage to defeat her? I hear she is quite strong."

"U-um… w-with my unique magic…" Tomomi muttered.

"Hold on just a second!" Maimai said. "What does that even mean if you say she betrayed us?"

"U-um…!" Tomomi said.

Judging from the lack of additional voices, I surmised that the four of us were the only ones here, and opened my eyes. A quick look around confirmed my theory, so I leapt to my feet, startling Tomomi and Maimai… though Maria somehow didn't look surprised at all. Perhaps she'd already realized I was faking.

"I'll handle this," I said.

"W-whoa! You're awake, Miss Lita?" Maimai gasped.

"Maimai… I just can't agree with the methods the Magius are using," I said. "So they decided to label me a traitor."

"Huh… what methods are those?" Maimai said. "They don't really tell me much, so I'm really curious…"

"Well, not too long ago they created a rumour that would've killed a lot of people if the Crescent Moon Villa team hadn't gotten in the way," I said. "Today they brainwashed all the feathers sent out into the city to make them obey their commands without question. And they've also summoned the most terrible witch in the entire world. It'll soon arrive here in Kamihama. Walpurgisnacht so powerful, she doesn't hide inside a labyrinth, and she brings natural disasters wherever she goes – usually in the form of a typhoon."

Maimai blinked. "H-huh!? T-that's a pretty awful list of things there… all this really happened without me knowing anything…?"

"To be quite honest, I'm even more out of the loop than most of you," Maria said. "But I did hear a rumour from Miss Kirino, a student at my school, that substantiates Miss Ashley's first claim. According to her, there was a commotion of some kind at Ferris Wheel Field a couple of nights ago, which is the same place Lita-chan and Inui-chan said they put a rumour."

"And I was one of the ones brainwashed earlier," Tomomi added.

"Hmm," Maimai said. "I don't really have a problem with the whole raising witches thing, y'know? It's like, no different from lions at the zoo, right? And there's a clear reasoning behind what they're doing, a method to gather energy without too much risk. But summoning a powerful witch to the city… how does that even benefit them? I don't get it… it's going to cause a lot of damage, and for what…?"

"Well, they do have a warped logic behind it," I said. "Walpurgisnacht is still a witch, so they'd gather a lot of energy if she grows stronger."

"Ugh, it's too awful!" Maimai said. "I can't let them get away with it! Plus trying to kill a lot of people, and brainwashing their own allies… I can't forgive that, either."

"So, what are you going to do, then?" I asked.

"Say… you're already planning something, aren't you, Miss Lita?" Maimai said. "Can you let me in on it? I'll help you however you want!"

I blinked at her. I hadn't expected her to turn on them quite so easily. Even with her reaction to their plans, I'd been prepared for her to start to rationalize it all…

"Um… how do I know I can trust you?" I asked.

"I'll swear on my name!" Maimai exclaimed. "If I lie to you, I'll change my name to Reiji!"

I tilted my head in confusion. She must've realized it flew over my head, so she continued with a smile.

"Oh, I mean my real name! I'm Hachikuji Mayoi, nice to meet you!"

That was a bit of a shock, hearing that name, but I recovered quickly. It also explained the pun – her surname meant 'eighty-nine temples', while the new name she proposed could be written to mean 'zero temples'.

"R-right! That's quite a hefty sacrifice you've proposed for just a little lie. I'm Ashley Taylor. By the way… has everyone here been tuned by the Coordinator at least once?"

"Of course," Maria said. "I'm from Kamihama myself, after all."

"Uhh, yes, I have," Tomomi said. "It was… last week… I think?"

"I haven't seen her," Mayoi said. "But the cat sempai poked at my soul gem a couple of times before I came here, so I should be good."

I blinked at her in surprise. If she was Hachikuji Mayoi, then the so-called 'cat sempai' could only be one person…

"Huh? W-wait, are you telling me that Hanekawa Tsubasa is a Coordinator!?"

"Huh?" Mayoi said. "Did I ever mention the cat sempai's name…?"

"Ah… um… never mind that… is she though?"

"Well, she doesn't run a business or anything," Mayoi said. "But I guess you could call her one…?"

"R-right… we don't have time to talk about that anyway," I said. "If you're with us, Maimai, then let's get started. Miss Maria, are the others nearby?"

"They went to the west wing in search of Miss Futaba," Maria said. "I imagine they should be back soon, though."

Ashley nodded. "I'm not sure how much time we have, though… okay, here's the plan. Try to contact them via telepathy and get them to gather here. I'll get Tomomi-chan to take me upstairs to locate Miss Mifuyu and the flute sisters, but once everyone else gets here, it's time to strike back. Drop your feather robes and challenge the other feathers. If possible, you should try to bring down at least the Instructor and Miss Sorashi, if no-one else. There are fewer than thirty feathers left on the base, so if we catch them between us and Miss Nanami's group, they won't be able to fight back very effectively. If we wait too long, feathers may start to return from the city. Even though Miss Yakumo is watching the entrance, some might be able to sneak past her."

"Understood," Maria said. "We'll wait for the others here, then strike. Good luck!"

"Good luck, Miss Taylor!" Mayoi said.

We continued heading upstairs, and I feigned unconsciousness again as we passed by a few feathers. Then we finally reached the top floor, where there was a door being guarded by Yukari Miyuri and the white feather with green hair, Sorashi.

"Who goes there!?" Sorashi challenged.

"I h-have another prisoner!" Tomomi said. "I was t-told you'd know what to do with her…"

"Oh, it's Miss Taylor?" Sorashi said. "Well done… you can just leave her. I'll take it from here. You have her soul gem, right?"

"Y-yes, of course!" Tomomi said.

"Then deliver it to the Magius at once," Sorashi said.

"G-got it!"

She turned and headed back to the stairwell, while Sorashi dragged me into the room and laid me on the floor. Once the door was closed behind me, I sat up and looked around. Mifuyu and the Amane twins were laid out on the floor beside me. I took a minute or so to examine the room in some detail, but there wasn't much of interest – it was a small private lounge, with a window opposite the door. There was a closet on one side, so I slipped inside there to pull out my communicator. I flicked it on, turned the channel dial down by one, and reduced the volume dial by about half. Then I opened a vision on Yachiyo to confirm there were no feathers in the vicinity, after which I pressed the speak button.

"Ashley here… can anyone hear me?"

After several seconds of delay, Kanagi's voice issued from the device.

"Izumi here. Over."

"I found Miss Mifuyu and the Amane twins. They're on the seventh floor. There are only two feathers guarding the door, and one of them is very weak. It should be easy to break through them."

"Understood. We're on our way. Izumi out."

---

"It was pretty helpful to know exactly where to go to find them," Yachiyo says. "Thank you for your help on that point, Miss Taylor."

"I'm sure it wasn't all that necessary," I say. "I mean, you probably would've found the right place almost as fast even without my help. Still… I guess you never know what shaving off just a little time would change… which honestly was my reason for doing it anyway."

"Right! So back to just after you split off from us, as expected, we ran into those three feathers almost immediately," Momoko says.

---

Three feathers, one white and two black, stepped out from the building, and Kanagi gasped. There was nowhere to hide, and they were spotted immediately.

"They found us!" she said.

"Surprise, surprise," said the white feather, who Inui identified as Konoha. "They had gotten in, just like the report said."

"There's more of them than I thought," said the short-haired black feather, who Inui identified as Yumi.

"Doesn't matter!" Konoha said. "It's up to us feathers to make sure we stop them. We won't let them get anywhere near the Magius until everything is over! Black feathers, to me!"

"Y-yes!" said the brown-haired black feather, who Inui identified as Nami.

They were also joined by two more black feathers who still wore their pendants, who must have recently returned from the city. But even with the five of them, they were still outnumbered, and several of their opponents had years of experience under their belts. Momoko beat down the white feather, Konoha, without breaking a sweat.

"G-get the hell out of here!" Konoha screamed.

She struggled to her feet and lashed out with her chains, which Momoko dodged. These chains even had blades attached, making them more dangerous than those of the average feather.

"How is she still standing!?" Momoko gasped.

Then Kaede snuck up behind her and struck her on the head with her staff, and she fell to the ground, unmoving. Kaede stood there, panting.

"I t-took care of this one!" she said.

"Thanks, Kaede!" Momoko said.

"N-no problem!" Kaede said.

"We're done over here!" Tsuruno announced.

"Those guys wouldn't give up," Felicia complained. "They kinda surprised me."

"Candles burn brightest right before they are extinguished," Kanagi said.

"Like that 'fight or flight' thing, right?" Rena said.

Suddenly Yachiyo gasped, as Nami, the girl she'd just knocked down, managed to get to her feet again.

"Rena!" Yachiyo exclaimed.

Yachiyo leapt in with her halberd, catching Nami's attack but losing her weapon in the process.

"H-hey… thanks for that," Rena said.

Nami stood there for a moment, panting. She was the last one standing of their little group, and there was no signs of any reinforcements. The weapon she'd torn from Yachiyo's grasp landed with a thud on the grass beside her.

"You could have landed that blow," Yachiyo said. "You aren't like the other feathers. You're hesitating."

Without responding, Nami turned and ran back inside.

"Hm… I guess that feather was different?" Kanagi said.

"Did you read something in her mind?" Yachiyo asked.

"Yes," Kanagi said. "The white feather was very gung-ho, but that black feather seemed reluctant… confused, even."

"I suppose each has their own agenda," Yachiyo said. "But most of them seem to be determined. So it's likely that the most dedicated members are gathered here?"

"I'm not really sure," Kanagi said. "Perhaps their strongest loyalty lies with the liberation of magical girls."

"So they're following liberation, rather than the Magius?" Yachiyo said.

"Either way, we should definitely try talking to the ones with doubts!" Tsuruno said. "If we can convince them, we might be able to save some stamina… and even get some help!"

"That's a good point," Yachiyo said. "Shall we chase after her and try? We can ask her about Iroha, Mifuyu, and Miss Futaba."

"Please, help!" Nami's voice drifted out.

They stepped forward, heading for the door.

"Huh!?" another voice gasped. "W-what's going on?"

"Nanami Yachiyo and her team got inside!" Nami said.

"What!?" the other voice gasped. "They're here already?"

"Yes, I'm right here," Yachiyo said as she stepped inside.

Momoko and Kanagi followed her inside as the other speaker gasped. She was a white feather with pink hair whose identity Inui wasn't sure of, but Ashley identified her as Ikumi, and Iroha backed her up – Ikumi had been wearing a white feather robe when they'd met, after all. The rest of the team stepped in behind the three of them, looking around. They were in what appeared to be an elaborate lobby area, with some couches and chairs off to one side, a grand staircase leading up to the next floor, and a glass display case containing what looked to be a gigantic plush bear. There were four corridors exiting the area, two to the left at the front and rear of the building, and likewise two to the right.

"Two feathers," Kanagi said. "That shouldn't be too hard to deal with."

"Hey, careful what you say!" Rena said. "Otherwise they might not hear us out!"

"I'm just laying it out there, in case," Kanagi said. "It's important they understand the situation."

"Listen," Yachiyo said. "We really don't want to have to fight you. So please, listen to what we have to say."

"There's nothing for us to talk about," Ikumi said. "You! Send word to the other feathers! I'll keep them here as long as I physically can!"

"But I can't leave you!" Nami protested.

"Hurry!" Ikumi insisted.

"O-okay!" Nami said.

She ran off down one of the corridors as Ikumi stepped out to face down the entire team.

"This may take awhile," Kanagi said.

"Yeah," Yachiyo said.

Ikumi attacked with her chains, and Yachiyo stepped in to hold her off, but without attacking back. Ikumi continued attacking in vain until she was out of breath, at which point Yachiyo addressed her.

"Please put your weapon down," she said. "If we keep fighting, you'll end up getting hurt."

"It doesn't matter," Ikumi said, her voice wavering. "You're trying to stop us from achieving liberation. Liberation from hunting witches… and from ultimately becoming them. This is our one hope for escaping that fate! And your group is determined to steal it away from us! We have no choice but to fight you!"

"Do you really think the Magius are that deserving of your trust?" Yachiyo asked.

"Trust isn't the issue here!" Ikumi said. "I'm fighting you for the sake of all our futures!"

"Hmm… that doesn't make sense," Kanagi said.

"What doesn't make sense about it!?" Ikumi asked.

"It seems to me that you feathers are risking your lives for the Magius's future," Kanagi said. "You did everything they said, but they just made you into zombies using a rumour. You're being used."

"We're both using each other!" Ikumi declared. "All of this is for our own sake!"

"I know you say it's for your own good," Momoko said. "But it's better you stop following their orders. Maybe you can save yourselves by using rumours and witches and other people's suffering, but in the end, you'll be the ones who can't live with what you've done."

"More importantly, they haven't even revealed their plans to you," Yachiyo said. "They keep feeding you sweet half-truths so that they can keep on using you. They tell you that your curse will be broken and you'll be saved, but nothing else. You're trading in your future for the chance at liberation they dangled before you."

Ikumi gasped.

"I-I was… I was never fighting for myself…?" she said. "I… traded in my own future?"

"I know what we're saying is hard to swallow," Yachiyo said. "But it's not too late. You can change your own future, with your own hands."

"Yeah!" Tsuruno said. "Stopping the Magius might mean getting rid of the chance for liberation, but it also means you won't get taken advantage of anymore! It might get tough from now on, but at least this time we can talk through it together!"

"Yeah!" Felicia said. "Let's all stop the Magius, together!"

"It's not that easy," Ikumi said morosely.

"You've lost sight of the big picture cause you're so focused on liberation," Momoko said. "But if you just think about it, you know what kind of future awaits."

"No, I… w-well, I suppose," Ikumi muttered.

"Could you just answer one question for us?" Yachiyo said. "Do you know where Tamaki Iroha, Futaba Sana, and Azusa Mifuyu are right now?"

"No, I don't," Ikumi said.

"I see," Yachiyo said. "Well, thank you anyway."

The group moved past Ikumi, who had apparently lost the will to continue fighting. But just as they were about to enter the east wing, Ikumi addressed them.

"I… I really don't know w-where they are now, but…!" Ikumi suddenly blurted out. "Futaba Sana attacked me, and after that she went to save Tamaki Iroha. I don't know anything about Miss Mifuyu. I… I haven't seen her since the day before yesterday…"

Yachiyo turned to look back at her.

"I see," Yachiyo said. "Do you know where Iroha was?"

"It was somewhere in the basement," Ikumi said. "I was on my way there when Futaba Sana attacked me, so I don't know the exact location…"

"I see," Yachiyo said. "Thank you for telling us."

As they walked past her to explore the east wing, they heard her muttering to herself.

"The Magius might keep controlling me even after everyone is liberated… well, isn't that just… hilarious…"

"Well, that didn't feel great," Momoko said with a sigh. "I guess when people get obsessed, they lose sight of reason like that."

"Momoko-chan, you're the same way when you're talking about idols," Kaede said.

"Oh, you mean like how you get all giddy when talking about your garden?" Momoko said.

"Well, that counts too, I guess," Kaede admitted.

"One's sense of morals alone can cause one to lose sight of the bigger picture," Kanagi said.

"That strikes close to home for me," Momoko said.

"So now what?" Rena asked. "Are we gonna keep looking for Iroha and Sana?"

"Everyone's on the move, so it'll be tricky to find their exact location," Yachiyo said. "But Miss Futaba can hide her own magic. If she does manage to recover Iroha, she should be able to escape."

"If we go to them, it could just make it easier for the feathers to find them," Momoko said.

"Still, I am worried about Azusa," Kanagi said.

"You too, Miss Kanagi?" Momoko said.

"So you noticed it too, Togame," Kanagi said. "Great minds think alike."

"I was also thinking about Mifuyu," Yachiyo said.

"I see you were on the same page, Nanami," Kanagi said. "I mean, that feather said she hadn't seen Mifuyu, but look at the situation. It's only natural to think something's off. It supports what Miss Taylor was saying, right?"

"It could, but she might just be hiding with the Magius, doing who knows what," Rena suggested.

"Yeah," Kaede said. "Like, maybe hiding away until Walpurgisnacht shows up?"

"Are we on the same wavelength?" Rena asked. "That's rare."

"I guess we are, Rena-chan!" Kaede said.

"Azusa is something of a figurehead for the feathers, basically their commander," Kanagi said. "It's strange to think she'd hide quietly, instead of supporting them out here."

"Even if she did think she could triumph by waiting this out in hiding, I just can't see Miss Mifuyu abandoning the feathers like that," Momoko said.

"Yes," Yachiyo said. "Mifuyu feels responsible for them. She would never think of hiding and saving just herself."

"It makes a lot of sense, Rena-chan," Kaede said.

"Y-yeah, when you put it like that it's a lot harder to imagine," Rena said.

"Then they probably locked her up, like that blonde chick said," Felicia said.

"Yes, that's exactly it," Kanagi said. "I think it's true, what Taylor-kun has been saying."

"Right," Yachiyo said. "She even helped us when Tsuruno was in trouble."

"Yeah, so it makes sense they'd capture her," Momoko said.

"Woohoo!" Felicia said. "Hear that, Tsuruno!? The lady in white got caught!"

"No, that's not something to cheer about!" Tsuruno said.

"Why not!?" Felicia asked.

"It might mean Mifuyu's really in danger if they locked her up," Tsuruno said.

"Huh?" Felicia said. "Shoot, you're right! That is bad!"

"But if they are holding her captive, then I might have an idea where she is," Tsuruno said.

"You know where she could be, Tsuruno?" Yachiyo said.

"There's that room they kept us in when we were brainwashed," Tsuruno said. "I remember that place clear as crystal, thanks to my mighty Tsuruno brain! If she's there, bingo! Operation Free Mifuyu will be a success!"

"That's our Tsuruno," Yachiyo said. "We can't just wait for Miss Taylor to find her… who knows if she's even searching in the right place? So, where's that room you mentioned located?"

"I'm not exactly sure," Tsuruno said. "But it's at least three floors up? No, more like five floors?"

"That's gonna be a pain to get to," Momoko said.

"Why?" Felicia asked. "Let's just wham a hole in the ceiling and get up there that way! Leave it to me!"

Without waiting for so much as a by-your-leave, she swung her hammer at the ceiling.

"Felicia, no!" Momoko said.

"Here goes! Boom!"

Momoko tried to stop her, but she was too late.

"There! One hole, just like I—"

Suddenly the rumour's barrier sucked them in, and a small bear-head creature appeared and attacked Felicia from behind with the spike on its head.

"Ow!" Felicia said. "Who hit me!?"

"A rumour!?" Tsuruno gasped. "Which means this building itself is a rumour!"

"So every time we destroy something, we'll encounter the rumour," Kanagi said. "You little feral dog. You've made more trouble for us now. Now the feathers will definitely know we're here. Let's defeat the rumour quickly and get out of here."

"Yes, let's!" Yachiyo said.

As they turned to face the bear head creature, voices were heard in the distance.

"It came from this direction!"

"It could be the intruders. Call the other feathers!"

"They're certainly quick on the draw," Yachiyo said. "Let's defeat the rumour and make our way up the staircase!"

The rumour proved to be rather easy to defeat, and the barrier settled down after it was gone. The voices seemed to be coming from the direction of the lobby, so the group instead entered a nearby stairwell. As they began to ascend the stairs, Kanagi spoke up.

"I think we lost them," she said.

"How did those guys know where we were!?" Felicia asked.

"Who wouldn't know, after that racket?" Kanagi said.

"Anyway, Tsuruno, is this the right way?" Yachiyo asked. "Do we keep going up?"

"Yeah, from what I could see out the window, we were reeeally high up," Tsuruno said.

"Then let's barrel up to the top!" Momoko said.

As they reached the third floor, they heard voices again, and Yachiyo peeked out of the stairwell to see what was going on. There was a group of feathers a bit further in, discussing something in a small lounge area.

"Wait!" Yachiyo said.

"Miss Yachiyo?" Momoko said.

"The feathers over there seem agitated about something," she said.

"Probably because Nanami's mad dog blasted a hole in the ceiling," Kanagi said.

Felicia made growling noises but otherwise said nothing.

"That could be it, but be quiet for a second," Yachiyo said. "We might be able to hear their conversation."

The speakers were a white feather with silver hair, who Inui identified as the Instructor, and a black feather who Inui identified as Maimai. There were several other feathers present as well, including another white feather.

"They want backup at the underground pass," the Instructor said.

"But aren't Nanami Yachiyo and her team headed this way?" Maimai asked.

"That may be so, but Tamaki Iroha broke out along with Futaba Sana," the Instructor said. "We can't allow them to escape."

"Then… I guess that takes priority," Maimai sighed.

"But we don't need all of you for backup," the Instructor said. "I think just the one should suffice. Come with me."

"R-right…" Maimai said.

The two of them began to head in the opposite direction from Yachiyo and the others, presumably making for the main stairwell at the centre of the building.

"Iroha!" Yachiyo gasped.

"If we follow them, we're bound to find her," Momoko said.

"But how did they even find Sana-chan?" Kaede wondered.

"Beats me," Rena said. "But this is a bad sign, no getting around it. We came all the way here thinking Sana could hide the two of them with her magic."

Just as she said that, two more feathers entered the stairwell from the fourth floor above them – a white feather with light hair who Inui identified as Fuu, and a black feather with green hair who Inui identified as Chiyoko.

"There!" Chiyoko said. "They're lurking on the stairs!"

"Everyone to this location, now!" Fuu said. "Capture Nanami Yachiyo and the rest!"

"They found us already!" Yachiyo gasped.

They were caught between Fuu and Chiyoko above them on the stairs, and the other feathers in the lounge area. There was no-one currently below them on the stairs, but the chance of someone coming after that ruckus was pretty high. The Instructor, hearing Fuu's call, turned and took a few steps back towards the lounge area.

"You, the feathers over there!" the Instructor called. "Take care of Nanami Yachiyo! The two of us can wait on the first floor. Then, when Tamaki Iroha and Futaba Sana show up, we can catch them!"

"O-okay!" Maimai said.

The other feathers in the lounge area got to their feet. According to Inui, the white feather was named Sue, and she herself was one of the black feathers. The other black feathers were Maria and Tomomi, the latter of whom they'd already met. The Instructor turned to continue on her way, and after looking around hesitantly for a moment, Maimai followed her.

"Momoko!" Yachiyo said.

"Yup!" Momoko said.

"You break through and chase the feathers that are after Iroha!" Yachiyo said. "We'll tackle these ones. They won't be able to take us all on at once, so I'm sure you can find an opportunity to slip past."

"Okay!" Momoko said. "Time for action rather than sitting around thinking! Rena! Kaede!"

"Ready whenever!" Rena said.

"Me too!" Kaede said.

"Where's our rendezvous point?" Momoko asked.

"Let's just say the first floor for now!" Yachiyo said. "We'll grill the other feathers for a more specific spot!"

"Got it!" Momoko said.

Momoko's trio left the stairwell and ran out into the lounge. Perhaps because the girls there were startled by their brazen actions, there was no attempt made to stop them, and they headed down the corridor after Maimai and the Instructor. As they reached the main stairwell, footsteps could also be heard behind them. It looked like one of the other white feathers had followed them, the one called Fuu.

"Momoko-chan! We finally caught up!" Kaede said, panting a little.

"We gotta ask her where she's headed!" Rena said.

"And there's Iroha-chan to worry about, too," Momoko said. "We need to know what they're planning to do with her!"

"Ugh, seems like they split into two teams," the Instructor muttered. "The team with the soul gems is still trying to create some distance by taking a detour through the garden… so our main concern is the gem-less bodies… and the report a little while ago said they were tracking down Futaba Sana… so I'd like to catch them when they come out of the dungeon. Hmm… I should pick up more support. This way!"

Instead of heading downstairs, she crossed through the stairwell and headed into the corridor on the other side, Maimai still following her. Momoko, Kaede, and Rena did the same, and behind them, Fuu was still just as persistent as before. It wasn't long before the reason for the Instructor's strange action became clear, however. A pair of black feathers emerged from one of the rooms, looking around in confusion – the brown-haired one who Inui identified as Nami, and a green-haired one who Inui identified as Aoi. The Instructor then raised her voice, calling to all the other feathers present.

"You four! Take care of these intruders!" the Instructor shouted. "I'm counting on you!"

"R-right!" Aoi said.

The two of them leapt out to block Momoko's way as the Instructor continued down the corridor and disappeared from sight around a corner. Meanwhile, Fuu caught up behind them, blocking any chance of retreat. Maimai stood behind Aoi and Nami, sighing.

"I'm not very good at fighting, though," she said.

"We can at least buy some time!" Fuu said.

"You're not as dumb as you look," Rena said. "You didn't say you'd beat me. Seems you can tell just how much better I am than you."

"Let's go after the one who just ran off!" Momoko said.

"Why don't we just ask these ones here first?" Kaede asked.

"Well, I guess we could do that, too," Momoko said.

But the feathers didn't seem interested in talking. They defeated Aoi and Fuu fairly quickly, knocking them out cold, and then Nami once again turned and fled, back the way she'd come. Once Nami was was gone, Maimai sighed.

"I really don't want to fight with you guys," she said. "And I don't know where the person you're looking for is, either, but… I hope you find her. Good luck."

With that strange comment, she used some sort of magic and disappeared.

"Dammit!" Momoko said. "Now we've lost sight of that white feather!"

"And those other feathers wouldn't tell us anything," Rena said.

"Even though they'd been betrayed," Kaede said.

"The last one seemed like she didn't really care for the Wings of the Magius," Rena said. "She even wished us luck…"

"Some of them have nothing to lose," Momoko said. "They're not all like that one white feather. But then there are others who are starting to see reason, like that black feather just now…"

"Yeah," Rena said. "But what do we do now?"

"Well… right now, our only option is to go down," Momoko said.

So they hurried down the corridor in the direction the Instructor had gone, but then Ikumi stepped around the same corner the Instructor had disappeared around and blocked their way. Momoko gasped.

"Speak of the devil! It's that white feather again."

"Outta our way!" Rena shouted. "We have to chase the feather who just passed through here!"

"I won't let you pass!" Ikumi said.

"What?" Kaede said. "But you just helped us."

"You understand what's happening, right?" Momoko said. "You guys are the ones who are gonna pay for believing the Magius. You're still gonna try and help them, even though that may mean wrecking your future?"

"I… I don't know!" Ikumi said. "I don't even know what I was fighting for this entire time. I was supposed to be fighting for my own sake. I thought I didn't need to trust the Magius if I believed in liberation. But then… you told me that I was actually destroying my own future. I don't know what's right anymore!"

"Then let's think about it together!" Kaede said. "Don't leave it up to the Magius to fix everything for you! Stop clinging to them! You could help us think of a new future for magical girls."

"Yeah, that's right," Momoko said. "We could talk it over together and decide what to do ourselves this time. It's our decision to make."

"If you want that option, though, you gotta let us know your own opinion," Rena said.

"My own opinion," Ikumi said. "But then… if I give up on liberation, and it ends up not happening… then maybe my friend will turn into a witch, and it'll be m-my…"

"Hey, quit doing that to yourself!" Momoko protested. "So long as you're in Kamihama, you're fine!"

"B-but she's my best friend!" Ikumi wailed. "There aren't a lot of people who understand me for who I am. So, if I lost her… if she turned into a witch, I… I wouldn't be able to handle it!"

Though her soul gem wasn't visible, it must have been continuously gathering impurities during the conversation, for at that moment she suddenly unleashed her doppel. It took the form of a huge headless doll in a maid uniform with an accordion torso, carrying a pair of cymbals that it repeatedly slammed together. There was a giant wind-up key right around where the head should be, and the feather's body was embedded at the base of the key with glowing tentacles emanating from her eyes, each one tipped with an arrow. Those tentacles appeared to be the primary mode of attack, for they lashed out at the three magical girls without prejudice.

"Oh geez, are you kidding me!?" Momoko gasped, dodging an arrow tentacle.

"What a time for a doppel to show up," Rena said with a sigh. "You really are the queen of bad timing, Momoko."

"And the other white feather's getting away," Kaede groaned.

"I guess this is what I get for how good my timing was back at the heliport," Momoko said.

The arrow tentacles lashed out indiscriminately, but Kaede called up some vines to inhibit them, entangling the tentacles with the vines to prevent them from attacking. Then Momoko leapt in to slash at the cymbals, while Rena leapt off her shoulder to reach the windup key itself.

That seemed to be enough to defeat it. The doppel was absorbed back into Ikumi's body, and she fell to the ground, where her knees gave way.

"We contained her, somehow," Momoko said.

"Ugh, I could really do without this crap," Rena muttered.

"Are you alright?" Kaede asked.

She appeared to be addressing Ikumi, who was panting a little.

"In the end, if we believe the Magius and continue to push liberation through," Ikumi muttered. "We'll have our futures ripped away from us by them…"

"Yeah, that's where you're headed," Momoko said.

Ikumi sighed.

"I kind of feel like I've been shaken awake," she said. "I'm sorry."

"Hey, we're all still breathing, right?" Momoko said. "It's okay. Let's talk again when this is over. But when that time comes, at least let us see your face, okay?"

Momoko, Kaede, and Rena moved past her, but then suddenly Ikumi turned and called out.

"Wait!" she said.

"Really!?" Rena said. "What else do you want? We're in a hurry here!"

"I just got a telepathic message from the other feathers," Ikumi said. "Tamaki Iroha was recaptured."

"What!?" Rena gasped. "Dammit, now we really don't have time!"

"You won't be able to catch up to the Instructor now," Ikumi said.

"What!?" Kaede gasped. "N-no way…"

"Then what can we do!?" Rena asked.

"Break your way through," Ikumi said.

"Through what?" Momoko asked.

"Destroy the floors and fall through to the very bottom," Ikumi said. "Then you might make it in time. You should run right into Tamaki Iroha and the feathers that caught her."

"But this building we're in, it's a rumour," Momoko said.

"I'll take care of the rumour for you," Ikumi said.

"You sure?" Momoko asked.

"Yes, I chose to side with you guys," Ikumi said. "Just go."

"No turning back from this, you know," Rena said.

"I know," Ikumi said.

Rena sighed. "Alright. I'll blast a hole through here."

"I'll help!" Kaede said.

"Here goes!" Rena said. "Kaede!"

"You got it, Rena-chan!"

Rena and Kaede joined hands and charged up their magic, then let it loose all at once with a yell.

"Infinite Poseidon!"

"Judgement Earth!"

The vines Kaede called up weakened the floor, and Rena's mirror beam blasted it to smithereens, opening a hole in the floor in front of them. The rumour showed up like before, and Ikumi jumped in front to face it.

"Get going, now!" Ikumi shouted.

"Thanks!" Momoko said.

The three of them left Ikumi to face the rumour and hopped down the fresh hole in the floor. They heard Ikumi muttering behind them.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "You were so excited about liberating everyone. But I let you down…"

They found themselves on the second floor, and Momoko groaned.

"Crap! There's one more floor to go!" she said.

"Go, Momoko!" Rena said.

"Yeah!" Kaede said. "Me and Rena-chan have this place covered!"

Momoko chuckled. "Kaede, you got pretty dang strong!" she said.

"I mean, I've been fighting with you guys for awhile, right?" Kaede said.

"Come on!" Rena said. "What're you guys getting all emotional over? We don't have time for that!"

"Alright, Rena-chan!" Kaede said.

"Last floor, here we come!" Rena said.

The two of them repeated their previous move with a yell, blasting another hole in the floor.

"Get a move on, Momoko!" Rena shouted.

"I'm counting on you guys!" Momoko said.

"We'll be right behind you, so get going!" Kaede said.

Momoko hopped down alone while the two of them faced the rumour. Then she headed back the way they'd come, towards the entrance, and finally emerged into the lobby.

"If that white feather was telling the truth, then they should be heading here," Momoko muttered. "Oh, and that would be…"

The black feather with the red pigtail who Inui identified as Amu was already in the lobby, and she turned to face Momoko. She was with another black feather with long black hair who Inui identified as Mana, and… Iroha herself, who wasn't even transformed.

"You…" Amu said.

"You must have forced your way down here," Mana said.

"M-momoko-chan!" Iroha gasped.

"Looks like this is the right spot," Momoko said. "Iroha-chan, I'm here to help you! I can handle two black feathers on my own, no sweat!"

Mana and Amu stepped forward and lashed out with their chains, but Momoko carefully deflected them with her sword. So they tried again, this time keeping the chains low, intending to entangle Momoko's feet. However, she jumped over them, the chains passing through empty air.

"Damn!" Amu gasped. "We were so close!"

"It all ends here!" Momoko said.

She raised her sword and landed the finishing blow on the pair, knocking them to the ground.

"Iroha-chan, are you okay!?" Momoko exclaimed.

"Y-yes, thank you," Iroha said.

"Wait, how come you aren't transformed?" Momoko asked.

"The Magius took my soul gem," Iroha said.

"For real?" Momoko said.

At that moment, a white feather with long blonde hair emerged into the lobby from outside the building. Inui identified her as Ryo. She was accompanied by a black feather with short wavy blonde hair, who Inui identified as Sal.

"That's Togame Momoko!" Ryo gasped. "How did she get here?"

"More feathers from outside," Momoko said.

"W-wait, it's them!" Iroha gasped. "They have my soul gem!"

"Those guys have it?" Momoko said.

"Yes!" Iroha said.

While they were distracted by the newcomers, Amu managed to latch onto Momoko's leg. Mana also managed to crawl over and latch onto her other leg.

"H-hurry up, you two!" she shouted. "At least get the soul gems to the Magius!"

"Understood!" Ryo said.

Ryo and Sal gave Momoko a wide berth, heading further inside, towards the giant bear in the corner.

"Not good!" Momoko said.

Momoko tried to shake the pair off to go after Ryo, but they were holding on for dear life.

"Momoko-chan!" Iroha said.

"I won't make it in time!" Momoko gasped.

But then someone else popped out right in Ryo's face and attacked her.

"U-um, I…!"

---

After the Instructor, Maimai, Momoko, Kaede, Rena, and Fuu had disappeared down the corridor, Yachiyo and Kanagi stepped forward to face the rest of the feathers in the lounge, while Tsuruno and Felicia turned back to defend them from Chiyoko, the black feather behind them.

"Okay, we'll fight and move at the same time," Yachiyo said.

"Understood," Kanagi said.

But apparently the feathers before them had other ideas.

"Looks like we're finally all here," Sue said. "It's time we make our move."

"Yeah, I was just about to say the same thing," Inui said.

"Huh?" Yachiyo said. "That voice…?"

All of the feathers present banished their robes and transformed, donning their normal magical girl outfits.

"We won't try to stop you," Inui said. "We were waiting for the right moment to mount our counterattack, and I think this is it. Go on to the top floor… we'll cover your backs."

"You… you're all betraying the Magius?" Tsuruno asked.

"We're the ones who Miss Lita convinced to turn against them," Sue said. "I'd do introductions, but we really don't have time right now, so I'm afraid they'll have to wait. Go on! If any other feathers try to stop you, we'll take care of them, whether they're devout ones left at the base or lower ones returning from the city."

"Thank you very much!" Yachiyo said.

Before they could do anything else though, Ashley's voice issued from Kanagi's pocket.

"Ashley here… can anyone hear me?"

Kanagi fished out the communicator and pressed the speak button.

"Izumi here. Over."

"I found Miss Mifuyu and the Amane twins," Ashley's voice said. "They're on the seventh floor. There are only two feathers guarding the door, and one of them is very weak."

"Understood," Kanagi replied. "We're on our way. Izumi out."

Inui and Chiyoko joined them as they headed back into the stairwell and continued upwards, now without resistance. However, just as they reached the fifth floor, a black feather stepped into the stairwell, a green-haired one who Inui identified as Yumi. She stopped and stared at everyone.

"Let me handle this," Inui said.

She mounted a couple more steps to get ahead of Yachiyo, facing Yumi.

"You're Yumi-chan, right?"

"Eh… yes," Yumi said. "W-what's… going on here…? Wait… aren't you… Nanami Yachiyo… and Izumi Kanagi!? Y-you're going to… destroy all our hopes… aren't you!?"

"That's not it," Yachiyo said.

"I-I… I won't let you pass!" Yumi said desperately. "I… I won't! If we lose our only chance at liberation… my friend might turn into a witch! I don't want that!"

"Calm down!" Inui said. "It's not that simple…"

"The Magius are using you," Yachiyo said.

"W-we're using them too!" Yumi said.

"Even if you say it like that, it's still an unequal relationship," Kanagi said. "They're not being honest with you. How do you even know their plan will work?"

"Huh!? N-no way… I can't… I don't even want to think about that!" Yumi screamed.

As she screamed, she also unleashed her doppel, taking the form of a purple scorpion-like tail that emerged from her back and formed a noose, with numerous eyes around the inner surface of the noose and outward pointing spikes on the outer surface.

"Ugh!" Inui said. "Chiyo-tan and I will take care of this… you guys hurry on up!"

She conjured up a flame whip and attacked Yumi's doppel with it.

"I'll even help you out a bit," Chiyoko said.

She pointed up to the next landing, halfway between the fifth and sixth floors, and expelled a white rope which struck the balcony and stuck there.

"Just grab on," she said.

"Okay…" Yachiyo said.

Yachiyo, Kanagi, Tsuruno, and Felicia all grabbed the silken rope.

"Now, hold on tight," Chiyoko said.

Moments after she'd said that, the rope retracted, pulling the four of them up. Using the momentum that gave them, they landed safely on the next landing. Tsuruno paused to peer down at the doppel below. It looked like Inui and Chiyoko were holding their own against it, though. Chiyoko had restrained the doppel with her webbing, making it easy for Inui to attack with her pink flames while ensuring the doppel itself could not attack.

"I didn't expect her to release a doppel all of a sudden," Yachiyo said.

"So that is the phenomenon known as a doppel," Kanagi said. "It greatly resembles the transformation into a witch… but it's like an incomplete transformation."

The four of them continued climbing the stairs. Finally, they reached the seventh floor, where there were only two feathers. Ashley identified the white feather as Sorashi and the black feather as Miyuri.

"The seventh floor!" Yachiyo said.

"This must be the place, Yachiyo!" Tsuruno said.

"Yes!"

The white feather known as Sorashi gasped as the four of them piled into the corridor.

"That's Nanami Yachiyo!" she exclaimed. "And Izumi Kanagi is with her too!?"

"A-are you telling me they realized that Miss Mifuyu is being held captive?" Miyuri asked.

"That can't be," Sorashi said. "We and the Instructor are the only ones who know about it. There's no way they could've gotten that information out of the other feathers. I have no idea how they found out about this place, but now we have to protect this area at all costs! Don't you dare space out on me this time!"

"Y-yes!" Miyuri said. "I-I'll do my best!"

"They're bulking up their defences!" Tsuruno said. "We didn't even need to search! Yep, yep!"

"Nanami!" Kanagi said. "Get inside the room! We'll hold them back here!"

"Yeah, you go get the lady in white!" Felicia said.

"Thanks!" Yachiyo said.

"Not so fast!" Sorashi said. "I'm gonna catch you and offer you up to the Magius! And this time, I won't be holding back!"

"So you still believe in the Magius, even now?" Yachiyo said.

"So long as we have the tiniest chance of success, I'll try and make that happen," Sorashi said. "All magical girls have is despair. And with a big gamble like this one, I'm betting on the side with better odds."

"There's no getting through to this one, Nanami!" Kanagi said.

"Alright," Yachiyo said. "The feathers are yours to handle!"

"Indeed," Kanagi said. "Leave it to me!"

Though clearly nervous, Miyuri also stepped forward, raising her chains menacingly. While Sorashi and Kanagi faced off, Miyuri tried to attack Felicia, who easily dodged her.

"You're using such a light weapon!" Felicia said. "How come you're so slow!?"

She smacked the girl with her hammer, and she almost immediately froze up and went catatonic, collapsing to the ground in a heap.

"Dammit, I told the Instructor she wouldn't make a good guard," Sorashi muttered.

In contrast to Miyuri, Sorashi seemed to be extremely skilled with the chain attacks, enough that she could face off against Kanagi and Tsuruno together without backing down. It also made it difficult for Yachiyo or Felicia to slip by, so they decided to stand back and watch.

"I'm going to blast you away in one go!" Tsuruno suddenly shouted.

"N-no!" Sorashi said. "I won't let you pass! If those four girls wake up…"

"Hmm," Kanagi said. "I see. Deep down, you're quite the pathetic lowlife. It's enough to make my blood boil!"

"Flame Waltz!"

"Light of Conviction!"

The combined ultimate attacks blasted Sorashi away, but she somehow managed to avoid being knocked out, riding the wave and kicking off the walls to propel herself back towards them. She dropped the chains, too. It seemed she was now relying on her personal magic, not the Magius's chain techniques.

"W-what did you learn, Kanagi!?" Yachiyo gasped.

"I'll explain later!" Kanagi said. "Have you found Azusa, Tsukasa-kun, and her sister? And Taylor-kun?"

"Alright!" Yachiyo said.

She barged into the room, shouting Mifuyu's name. Mifuyu and the Amane twins were laying on the floor in the room, unmoving as if they'd suddenly collapsed. From outside, Tsuruno's voice could be heard. Ashley leapt up from where she'd been sitting in an armchair.

"I didn't expect you to get here so soon," Ashley said. "I literally just spoke to you like a minute or two ago…"

Yachiyo didn't seem to hear her though – she only had eyes for Mifuyu.

"What in the world? Why are all three of them lying on the floor…? There's no sign of any struggle…"

She knelt next to Mifuyu to check on her.

"Mifuyu… answer me!" she said.

Then she realized with a gasp that the other girl wasn't breathing.

"No… no, this can't be happening," she said. "Open your eyes! Come on! Wake up! Why!?"

Then Felicia barged in behind her.

"We finally clobbered that feather!" she announced. "Where's the lady in white!?"

She blinked at the sight of Mifuyu on the ground. Tsuruno burst in behind her, panting.

"Did she faint?" Felicia asked.

"She's… dead," Yachiyo said.

"Huh?" Felicia said.

"This… this c-can't be," Tsuruno said. "The Amane twins, too!?"

Tsuruno knelt to check on them and found that they too were not breathing.

"They're not breathing… what about a pulse!?"

She checked and found none.

"Nothing…"

"What?" Felicia said. "I don't get it… did they just kill them? Those girls were on their side! How could they!?"

"Um, excuse me…?" Ashley said. "Could you all please calm down for a moment and listen…?"

Kanagi stepped in just as she finished speaking, with much the same sentiment. She had Sorashi captured in a choke hold.

"Calm down! They're fine!" Kanagi said. "The body can't be separated from the soul gem beyond a fixed distance. Otherwise the link between them breaks. It seems these tiny gems really do contain our lives."

"I'm a little surprised you never learned about this, Miss Nanami," Ashley said. "Tokiwa Nanaka already knew about it… and come to think of it, didn't Miss Miki mention it to you?"

"Then if we bring them closer…?" Yachiyo said.

"They'll wake up again," Ashley said.

"Yes, as Taylor-kun said, they should come back to life," Kanagi said.

Suddenly Yachiyo grabbed her halberd and attacked the captured Sorashi, stopping just before piercing her chest. Sorashi gasped.

"Spill it!" Yachiyo said. "Where are you keeping Mifuyu and the Amane sisters' soul gems!?"

"W-why would I ever tell you?" Sorashi asked. "Serves you right for trying to stop us from achieving our dreams!"

"You little!" Yachiyo said.

She flipped her halberd and made as though to wallop Sorashi on the head with the haft, but Kanagi caught it before the blow landed.

"Enough, Nanami," she said. "I'll do the dirty work. Allow me to take a deeper look…"

Sorashi suddenly gasped, no doubt a result of the mind probe.

"Ah, so that's it," Kanagi said.

She casually tossed the girl away, and she struck the wall, falling to the floor in a heap.

"I… I won't…" Sorashi groaned.

But that seemed to be the most she could manage before she passed out.

"It seems just as they are moving Tamaki-kun's body, they are also moving her soul gem," Kanagi said.

"So you're saying…" Yachiyo began.

"All of the soul gems, and Tamaki-kun's body, are being moved at the same time," Kanagi said. "And they're headed… to the entrance?"

"The entrance," Tsuruno said. "On the first floor! We need to get down there, Yachiyo!"

"Then we can wake up the lady in white and the sisters!" Felicia said.

"Yes," Yachiyo said. "Thank goodness we also sent Momoko's team down that way. There'd be no way for us to make it down there in time otherwise."

"There's the feathers to think about, too," Tsuruno said.

"I wouldn't be too worried about them," Kanagi said. "They've got Taylor-kun's little insurrection to deal with as well as us, and we may get there a lot more quickly than you'd think if we just fight one vital battle. This room is almost directly above the entrance, isn't it?"

"You have a plan?" Yachiyo said.

"Too simple to call it a plan," Kanagi said. "We merely break out of this window and drop right down. The sole problem is the rumour."

"You're right," Yachiyo said. "It's bold, but effective."

"I'm glad you approve," Kanagi said.

"I'll take on the rumour," Ashley said. "After all, I have Kensei… my anti-fiction sword. The rest of you get down there as fast as you can, and take these three with you… I'll join you as soon as I take out the rumour!"

---

Iroha suddenly woke up and found herself separated from Sana, with two feathers watching over her – the ones Inui identified as Amu and Mana. They were each grasping one of her arms as tightly as they could.

"W-what happened!?" she asked.

"Don't move," Mana said.

"B-black feathers…!? I-I can't move…"

"You're awake," Mana said. "That means your soul gem is near. We're taking you to the Magius."

Iroha simply nodded. That meant that she'd be able to get closer to her soul gem if she stayed with them. If she could just get her soul gem back, she might stand a chance of getting away.

"I thought you'd try to get away," Mana said.

"There's nothing I can do by myself if I can't transform," Iroha said.

"Indeed, you're right," Mana said. "There's no way for you to escape, short of a miracle."

"You're the same black feather from before, right?" Iroha said.

"So what?" Mana said. "You can try all you like to convince me, but I'm not going to budge."

"But there's no guarantee that their plan to free magical girls will succeed," Iroha said. "They're using witches to do it, so something even worse might happen."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Mana said. "Our fates will catch up to us sooner or later. And if we have to face our fate anyway, I will cling to this one tiny chance. It doesn't matter to me that the Magius might be using us."

"I think that's kind of naïve," Iroha said.

"I don't expect you to understand," Mana said. "You're someone who's not afraid to face your fate as a magical girl."

"No, I'm scared too," Iroha said. "I'm terrified of turning into a witch."

"You'd understand if you watched someone dear to you turn into one with your own eyes," Mana said.

"Someone dear?" Iroha said.

"Kuro-chan… my little sister became a witch," Mana said.

Iroha gasped. "Your little sister…"

"Yes," Mana said. "Since I saw her change into one of those things, I've been unable to accept my fate. But if we manage to free all magical girls, we'll all be spared that, and it would be a perfect way to honour my little sister."

"I-I have a little sister too," Iroha said.

"Is that so," Mana said.

"I don't know if she's alive or dead," Iroha said. "Until recently, she only existed in my memories… but I'm still determined to find her. She's somewhere nearby, I'm sure of it."

"What happened with your sister has nothing to do with mine whatsoever," Mana said.

"I don't think my sister would want this," Iroha said. "This salvation that comes at the cost of sacrificing so many lives."

"The two of you must be pretty strong, then, to say that so confidently," Mana said. "My sister and I just crumbled to pieces from the grief and wished to escape our fates. I won't stand for you looking down on us for that. Don't act like you and I are the same. I'm determined to make any sacrifice. I'll make my own selfish wish come true."

"Then isn't how things are now enough?" Iroha asked. "If the people in Kamihama can be saved, I'm sure that's enough for your sister!"

"There's no point in only saving Kamihama," Amu spoke up. "You only say that because you live here."

"Because I live here?" Iroha said. "Wait, then you two are…"

"Not from here," Amu said. "My parents and siblings are still living in another town. That's why I clung to her words, though I knew they were too good to be true. A little girl told me that magical girls can be saved in Kamihama. You'd never understand… just how much it lightened my burden to learn about doppels."

"Magical girls can be saved in Kamihama," Iroha said, recalling the Séance Shrine. "Ui…"

"Ui?" Amu said.

"My little sister could be the girl who told you," Iroha said.

"I didn't see a magical girl," Amu said. "But then, she wasn't a regular girl either. Most of the feathers that came from outside the city heard about it one way or another."

"Maybe some of them saw my sister," Iroha said.

"Why would we tell you?" Amu asked. "All I'm going to say to you is that we won't let you ruin our plans. The other feathers and I just want to live peacefully in our own towns. If some people have to get sacrificed for that, too bad. I don't care if it's selfish."

"Sorry… you're right," Iroha said. "Every feather has her own reason for joining the cause. But do you really think using witches is the right thing to do?"

"I'm not saying I don't understand how you feel about this, Tamaki Iroha," Amu said.

"We use witches so that we can hatch Eve," Mana said. "We know that it's dangerous."

"And we acknowledge that we don't know what the Magius will do with us post-liberation," Amu said. "We know that could be dangerous, too."

"Then why!?" Iroha exclaimed.

"We're so close to freeing everyone!" Amu shouted.

Iroha sighed. "So there's no convincing you," she said. "But I just can't accept a plan that puts people's lives in danger! I have to stop Touka-chan and Nemu-chan from making their sins any worse than they already are! Before they remember Ui!"

Thinking about it, if it was Ui's words that brought some girls from outside Kamihama to join the Wings of the Magius, that meant Ui really was connected to the Magius's plan somehow. She had even heard the words herself at the Séance Shrine. Certainly Ui was imprisoned somewhere in this building… did that mean she was still alive? It gave Iroha a little more hope.

"So I'll… I will stop the Magius for my own sake!" Iroha concluded. "That's my selfish wish!"

While the two black feathers were shaking their heads at her naïvety, Iroha managed to undo the ribbon from her uniform and drop it on the ground. Hopefully Sana would see it and realize she had passed this way.

A minute or so later, they reached the entrance once more, stepping into the lobby from one side at almost the same time as Momoko entered from the other side.

"You…" Amu said.

"You must have forced your way down here," Mana said.

"M-momoko-chan!" Iroha gasped.

"Looks like this is the right spot," Momoko said. "Iroha-chan, I'm here to help you! I can handle two black feathers on my own, no sweat!"

The two black feathers were no match for Momoko, of course. They were on the defensive the whole time and couldn't land a single hit.

"Damn!" Amu gasped. "We were so close!"

"It all ends here!" Momoko said.

She landed the finishing blow on the pair, knocking them to the ground.

"Iroha-chan, are you okay!?" Momoko exclaimed.

"Y-yes, thank you," Iroha said.

"Wait, how come you aren't transformed?" Momoko asked.

"The Magius took my soul gem," Iroha said.

"For real?" Momoko said.

At that moment, Ryo entered the lobby from outside, accompanied by another black feather.

"That's Togame Momoko!" she said. "How did she get here?"

"More feathers from outside," Momoko said.

"W-wait, it's them!" Iroha gasped. "They have my soul gem!"

"Those guys have it?" Momoko said.

"Yes!" Iroha said.

While they were distracted by the newcomers, Amu managed to latch onto Momoko's leg. Mana also managed to crawl over and latch onto her other leg.

"H-hurry up, you two!" she shouted. "At least get the soul gems to the Magius!"

"Understood!" Ryo said.

Ryo and Sal gave Momoko a wide berth, heading further inside, towards the giant bear in the corner.

"Not good!" Momoko said.

Momoko tried to shake the pair off to go after Ryo, but they were holding on for dear life.

"Momoko-chan!" Iroha said.

"I won't make it in time!" Momoko gasped.

But then someone else popped out right in Ryo's face and attacked her. Sal was knocked down at the same time by someone else.

"U-um, I…!"

The speaker was Kaede, who had just showed up along with Rena.

"Ugh, who is it now?" Ryo asked.

"Looks like we picked the perfect time to drop in," Rena said.

"Rena-chan! Kaede-chan!" Iroha said.

"Stop those feathers!" Momoko shouted, pointing at Ryo and Sal. "They've got Iroha-chan's soul gem!"

"Huh!?" Rena gasped. "You think you can just run off with someone's life literally in your hands!?"

"We're gonna make you give back Iroha-chan's soul gem!" Kaede said.

"What awful timing," Ryo grumbled.

"Nah, I'd say it was pretty good!" Momoko said.

"W-w-what'll we do!?" Sal gasped from on the ground, looking around wildly.

"Psh, I'm not Kaede," Rena said. "A stupid rumour like that's not going to slow me down."

"I got a photo of Rena-chan looking all shocked when the rumour popped out," Kaede said. "I guess I'll have to send it to everyone later."

"When did you…!?" Rena gasped.

"There's no picture, Rena-chan," Kaede said.

"Kaaaeeedeee!" Rena exclaimed.

Ryo took advantage of their bickering to try and slip past them towards the rear east corridor, but Rena wasn't quite distracted enough to miss that, and stuck out a foot to trip her up.

"Hey, who said you could run away while we argued?" Rena asked.

"Ugh," Ryo said.

"Let's get it back, Rena-chan!" Kaede said.

"You don't have to tell me twice!" Rena said.

"We can't get through like this," Ryo muttered.

"Ugh," Mana said, now on her feet and no longer clinging to Momoko's leg. "I-I'll clear a path for you! Get out while you can!"

"No!" Kaede said.

She raised her staff and called up a wall of plants blocking off the corridor where Ryo had been attempting to flee.

"A wall of plants!?" Mana gasped.

Her escape route cut off, Ryo looked around wildly for an alternate exit. There were only four exits from the lobby – the stairwell leading up, the door to the outside, the blocked-off corridor, and one other corridor on the far side. Reaching the other corridor meant making it past Momoko, but Amu was still dragging that girl down by clinging to her legs, so Ryo decided to aim for that exit. Even if she failed, she'd probably be able to at least reach the stairs.

"Hey, over here!" Rena said. "It's time you took a nice long nap!"

Rena kicked Mana in the head, and she collapsed in a heap on the ground with a groan, still barely conscious but temporarily stunned. Then they turned to chase after Ryo, but she'd already gotten a bit of a head start.

"We have no choice but to retreat!" Ryo said.

Momoko finally managed to free herself from Amu's grasp and leapt forward to intercept Ryo just as she was about to reach the corridor she'd been aiming for.

"Make sure you give back what you stole first!" Momoko said.

She swung her sword at Ryo, and the four soul gems slipped from her grasp and landed on the floor. Iroha collapsed to the ground, curling up and squealing from the pain. The soul gems rolled away in all directions.

"Ah!" Ryo said. "T-the soul gems!"

"Dammit!" Momoko said. "They fell on the floor!"

"We've got no other choice!" Ryo said. "Destroy the soul gems! Anyone who can get to them, do it!"

"What!?" Momoko gasped.

Amu sort of rolled in the direction of one of the soul gems, reaching out for it.

"I just need… one clear shot!" Mana said.

She raised one of her chains and started swinging it, but before she could release the chain, someone let out a terrible scream.

"Nooooooooooooooooooo!"

"I know that voice!" Momoko gasped.

"P-please, let it reach them!"

Sana emerged from the very same corridor that Ryo had intended to retreat down, spinning her own chains and flinging them first at Ryo, knocking her backwards, and then at Amu, sending her flying away from the soul gem she was aiming for.

"It's okay!" Mana said. "I'll do it!"

But then Yachiyo stepped in from outside, followed by Kanagi, Tsuruno, Felicia, Ashley, Mifuyu, and the Amane twins. She grabbed Mana's chain before she could release it. Meanwhile, Mifuyu quickly gathered up the four soul gems.

"We made it just in time," Yachiyo said.

"What? Nanami Yachiyo!?" Mana gasped.

"Mifuyu!" Yachiyo said.

"Yes, I recovered all the soul gems," Mifuyu said.

"Miss Mifuyu's here too!?" Rena gasped.

"Everyone's here!" Kaede said.

"Miss Mifuyu… you came over to our side, then," Momoko said.

Mifuyu gripped her own soul gem and transformed.

"Let me take care of this," she said. "Assault Paranoia!"

Her illusion attack seemed to drain all remaining motivation from the feathers, and they flopped on the ground with a sigh.

"There, we've secured all four of them," Mifuyu said.

"Are you okay?" Ryo asked.

"Y-yes," Mana said.

"Ugh," Amu said.

Kanagi gazed at Ryo for a few moments.

"Nanami Yachiyo… Izumi Kanagi," Ryo said.

"You're from the east, aren't you?" Kanagi said.

"Miss Kanagi… you, of all people, should know why we're so desperate for liberation," Ryo said. "So, why?"

"That's a stupid question," Yachiyo said. "Did you really think that Kanagi would look past what you're doing?"

"That's rich, coming from someone from the west!" Ryo said. "You have no idea how much all of us have suffered!"

"Suffered?" Yachiyo said.

"The fate we're sentenced to as magical girls is only half of it," Ryo said. "The other half is the fate we're forced to bear, as people born in Daito Ward. A privileged girl from the west could never understand how we feel! We, as well as Miss Kanagi, are shackled with a debt our entire lives… due to long overdue payments from the past, accrued before any of us were even born. And because of how people choose to judge us before we even come into this world."

"That has nothing to do with dragging other people down into your mess," Yachiyo said.

"Just hearing you say that enrages me," Ryo said. "Knowing Miss Kanagi for so long, you should already know all this. You should know that the hearts of many in Daito are pushed to their limits. We are taken advantage of while being treated like a burden to Kamihama!"

"You're right," Kanagi said. "I understand how you feel. Us easterners are perpetually made victim by the intimations of others. We're seen as a threat due to perceived sins. The words of such people exacerbate things. We aren't seen as individuals. It's just as bad on a governmental level. Those tantalizing offers of a theme park when we were kids? Just empty campaigning. Those depending on the new jobs such a park would create were left in more despair. The east has been hurt by its citizens' poor standing. Those promises hurt us further."

"Kanagi…" Yachiyo said.

"But our desire to be saved doesn't permit us to do whatever we please," Kanagi said. "Those of us who were born with this heavy burden… we'll likely only take on a heavier burden because of your actions."

"There's no way I'd be able to do what you do, Miss Kanagi," Ryo said. "When Kyuubey showed up, I thought it was gonna turn my whole life around. Like maybe all the suffering I'd been through would be balanced out by a miracle. And look where I am now. I want to be freed from at least one of the things making me suffer! It's not wrong to think that, is it!? No-one can blame me, can they!?" She sighed. "It's time we leave."

"Yeah," Mana said.

"Right," Amu said.

"Just remember this," Ryo said. "What all of you are doing is crushing the wishes of everyone else. People whose little sisters got killed. Those trying to protect their friends. People trying to live out there in peace. Those running from all kinds of suffering."

"But I can't turn a blind eye," Yachiyo said. "The Magius believe it's fine to harm others to achieve salvation for themselves. They attack civilians and magical girls."

"All that may be true, but we could save countless magical girls in the future," Ryo said.

"The cost is allowing them to prey on us all," Yachiyo said. "We'll never see eye-to-eye on this."

"Don't think you're some paragon of virtue," Ryo said. "We are fighting over who gets to push through their selfish desires."

"If you're calling my wishes selfish, then I will be selfish until we prevail," Yachiyo said.

As the three of them turned to leave, Ashley spoke up.

"By the way… your little sister. When did she turn into a witch, exactly?"

Mana blinked at her in surprise.

"H-how did you know about that!?" she gasped.

"Miss Tamaki mentioned it to me a moment ago," Ashley said. "Right, Miss Tamaki?"

Iroha blinked at her. "Huh? Oh, um… yeah…? Did I…?"

"It was quite awhile ago," Mana said. "About half a year ago, near the end of summer or so. Why would you care?"

"Half a year ago, huh… sounds like around when I first met Miss Izumi," Ashley said.

"Yes, that sounds about right," Kanagi agreed.

"Did you by any chance save her grief seed?" Ashley asked.

"W-well… I did use it once when I was desperate," she said. "But I still have it somewhere…"

"I see," Ashley said. "Make sure you hold onto it. Don't give it to Kyuubey or anyone else. Don't use it again, either."

"Um… is there a reason you're asking about this?" Mana asked.

"I don't want to get your hopes up," Ashley said. "Sorry… just hold onto her grief seed for now."

"I… I see…" Mana said. "W-well… y-you didn't have to tell me that, anyway…"

She and the other feathers disappeared down the corridor, and Mifuyu walked up to Iroha and held out her soul gem. She had already distributed the twins' back to them while Kanagi and Ryo were chatting.

"Here, Miss Iroha," she said. "Your soul gem."

"Thank you," Iroha said, taking it.

"It's like a miracle we all managed to meet like this," Mifuyu said.

"Um… are you sure about this?" Iroha asked.

"What do you mean?" Mifuyu asked.

"All the feathers had their own hopes," Iroha said. "I know it was the same for you, Miss Mifuyu, and Tsukuyo-chan and Tsukasa-chan too."

"I can't follow the Magius as they are now," Mifuyu said. "Even if they were to save us."

"Yeah, we feel that way too," Tsukasa spoke up. "That's why we're teaming up with you."

"Indeed," Tsukuyo said. "It will not make up for the strife we caused while fighting you, but we would much appreciate it if you would let us fight alongside you from now on."

"I'm really happy to hear you feel that way!" Iroha said. "But is it okay to leave liberation behind?"

"We shall think of some other way to achieve happiness," Tsukuyo said.

"Right," Tsukasa said. "We were always more in support of the idea of liberation than the Magius anyway."

"…if that's the case, how'd you end up brainwashed?" Ashley said. "In the interviews with Alina, the feathers who didn't profess loyalty to the Magius were the only ones told to remove their pendants so they wouldn't be caught up in the rumour."

"We just assumed something terrible would happen if we didn't," Tsukasa said.

"So basically, you lied…"

"It sounds so vulgar when you put it that way," Tsukuyo said. "But I suppose I cannot deny it…"

"Anyway, even if we did achieve liberation, there is still a chance the Magius would've kept using us," Mifuyu said. "They've crossed a line now. I can no longer be so optimistic about this situation."

"Still, all that stuff the feathers said… it made me feel kinda sad," Tsuruno said.

"I understand how they feel, and that's what hurts me the most," Mifuyu said. "But I've still made the decision to part ways with them. So, Miss Tsuruno, are you going to side with them?"

"Whaaat!? No freaking way!" Tsuruno exclaimed. "I don't want the Magius to have complete control over my future, either!"

"Um, Miss Iroha?" Sana said. "Here…"

She held out the ribbon that she'd found on the ground.

"Thank you, Sana-chan!" Iroha said. "I'm so glad you found it."

She threaded it around her collar and retied the bow at her chest.

"N-no problem!" Sana said. "If you hadn't dropped this ribbon, we never would've been able to find you in time."

"Yeah, I thought that was a smart move, for what it's worth," Kyouko said.

"Thanks for helping us, Miss Sakura," Iroha said.

"No biggie," Kyouko said. "I was already stuck in this mess, so I thought… why not help out?"

"I'm just glad you're okay," Sana said.

"Yes," Kanagi said. "It's great that we all got to meet up unscathed. But why were those feathers carrying you away like that, Tamaki-kun?"

"Didn't you try reading their minds earlier?" Yachiyo asked.

"I didn't have enough time to sift through the finer details," Kanagi said.

"Um," Sana said. "I-I think the feathers were moving Miss Iroha because the Magius ordered them to!"

"Just as I thought," Yachiyo said. "Do you know where they intended to take her?"

"Yes!" Sana said. "They were going to bring her to the Magius! One of the feathers said that Alina was the one who requested it!"

"Whoa!" Tsuruno said. "Hang on, so that means… we've gotta be pretty close to where the Magius are! We followed the feathers all the way here, after all!"

"O-oh yes!" Sana said. "Yes, you could be right!"

"We got enough girls here that it should be a cinch to take them on, no matter how many!" Felicia said. "Heck, the Magius could show up and I wouldn't be a bit scared!"

"Indeed," Yachiyo said. "The timing of our arrival couldn't have worked out better. We even got the soul gems back, and reunited with Iroha and Miss Futaba. That leaves just one thing to take care of."

Iroha nodded. "Stopping the Magius's plans!"

"Exactly!" Yachiyo said. "We need to be prepared."

"Yes!" Iroha said. "There's me, Miss Yachiyo, and Tsuruno-chan… Felicia-chan and Sana-chan… and Miss Kanagi, too. Momoko-chan, Rena-chan, and Kaede-chan. Miss Mifuyu, as well as Tsukuyo-chan and Tsukasa-chan. And even Miss Sakura and Miss Taylor. With all of us here together, there's no way we can fail against the Magius!"

With that declaration, Iroha finally transformed. The twins also followed her example.

"Sooo, it's cool we're all gung-ho about heading to where the Magius are," Kyouko said. "But how're we gonna find them, exactly?"

"I have a place in mind," Mifuyu said.

"Where is it, Mifuyu?" Yachiyo asked.

"The underground chapel," Miss Mifuyu said. "It's likely the Magius are there."

"That's exactly where they are," Ashley said. "I can see them right now, giggling about how their plans are going oh so well."

"Underground?" Iroha said. "So are we going back to the jail cell where they kept me?"

"No, this is somewhere completely different," Mifuyu said.

"The basement, dungeon, whatever you want to call it… it's not even connected to the underground chapel," Ashley said.

"The chapel is a place of the utmost importance to the Magius," Mifuyu continued.

"Hold up," Kyouko said. "You're talking about that place?"

"How strange!" Tsukuyo gasped.

"I agree, Tsukuyo-chan," Tsukasa said.

"The path to the underground chapel is completely blocked off!" Tsukuyo said.

"That's exactly why I thought they're there," Mifuyu said. "They must've done some rebuilding while we were held captive."

"Who can rebuild something that fast!?" Tsuruno gasped.

"The building we're in is a rumour crafted by Nemu's magic," Mifuyu said. "She can reshape it at will. This building itself has been expanded over time."

"Yeah, every time I see it, it's gotten a little larger," Ashley said.

"Huh, so she can do whatever she wants because it's magic," Tsuruno said.

"I don't get it," Felicia said.

"Think of Hotel Fendt Hope like building a house with toy blocks," Tsuruno said. "It started out very small, but they kept making it bigger and bigger."

"Huuuh?" Felicia said. "Does that mean the path to where they are got changed?"

"Unlikely," Tsukuyo said.

"They wouldn't have time to rebuild it as drastically as that," Tsukasa said.

"For sure," Tsukuyo said.

"Oh, then it's pretty simple," Rena said. "If the path didn't change, they must've just shoved stuff in the way, right? Which means all we have to do is bash it down."

"A rumour'll probably jump out, though," Momoko said.

"Yeah, and so what?" Rena said. "You got any better ideas, Momoko?"

"Well, no, not really," Momoko admitted.

"Miss Rena is correct," Mifuyu said. "The only thing we can do to get through is break the blockade. They may have even configured it so that only feathers allied with them can pass."

"That's like a ninja house," Felicia said. "But hey, if we can't get through, let's hurry up and start smashing!"

Mifuyu frowned slightly.

"Is something wrong, Mifuyu?" Yachiyo asked.

"There's a chance they put this blockade up to grab our attention," she said. "It's not unthinkable that they laid some sort of trap for us here. So everyone, be ready for anything."

"Alright," Yachiyo said.

"Can I ask everyone to wait just a bit?" Ashley said. "Destroying that soldier bear is the correct tactic, but I'd like Tomomi-chan to be here when we do it. Plus, even after we get past the soldier bear, we'll need to wait for Tomoe Mami to get through the next blockade."

Mifuyu blinked at her. "How could you know about that…?" she asked.

"I don't have to answer that question," Ashley said.

"That's what Miss Yachiyo always used to say," Iroha said.

Ashley took out the communicator and pressed the speak button.

"Inui, are you finished clearing out Fendt Hope yet?"

Inui's voice came back almost immediately.

"Just about!" she said. "We're just struggling a bit against the Instructor right now… she's really strong! Everyone else has already been tied up and sent to the lawn outside using Maimai's magic, so she's the last one left."

"Just to be sure, by everyone you're including Yukari Miyuri, right?" Ashley said.

"Uhh, yes, of course," Inui said. "Like I said, the Instructor, Kagura San, is the last one resisting us."

"Do you think you can manage without Tomomi-chan?" Ashley asked.

"Um… yeah, I think we could spare her," Inui said.

"Then could you ask her to come to the lobby?"

"Got it!" Inui said. "She'll be there really soon! Inui out!"

Mifuyu blinked at Ashley.

"So you've organized a little coup of your own…?" she said. "That's pretty impressive… I probably should've joined up with you instead of just speaking out on my own."

"That's partially my fault too," Ashley said. "Maybe I should've asked you to join…"

"No, it's quite alright," Mifuyu said. "It's not all your fault. I actually knew you were plotting something… I'm just surprised it's been so effective."

"While we're here, we should probably also redistribute the communicators a little," Ashley said. "At the very least, Miss Mifuyu should probably have one."

"Who else has these communicators?" Mifuyu asked.

"I gave one to each of the Crescent Moon Villa team," Ashley said. "Which means… Miss Nanami, Miss Yui, Miss Mitsuki, Miss Tamaki, Miss Futaba, Miss Togame, Miss Akino, Miss Minami, and Miss Izumi. I think they had one extra as well."

"I lost mine though, and so did Sana-chan," Iroha said.

"And I gave mine to someone else," Tsuruno said. "The super-sempai!"

"Miss Miyako, then," Ashley said. "Then there's me, Inui, Oriko, Madoka, Kanna-chi, Matsuri-chan, Miss Kanade, Kazumi-chan, Liliane-chan, Sarra, Miss Hitomi, and Miss Masuyo, but… I presume most of those names are unfamiliar to you."

Mifuyu blinked again. "Are those all magical girls from other cities?" she asked. "You have far more allies than I could have ever anticipated… you probably could have taken down the Wings of the Magius all by yourself…"

"I gathered them all here for a different reason," Ashley said. "To defeat Walpurgisnacht. Taking down the Wings of the Magius wasn't my top priority."

At that moment, Tomomi ran into the lobby, panting a little.

"I'm here!" she said. "What's going on?"

"We were about to break through the blockade," Ashley said, indicating the giant bear. "Could you help us? Your power should be useful."

"O-okay, I'll do my best!" Tomomi said.

"Now then, let us handle this," Mifuyu said. "Miss Tsukuyo, Miss Tsukasa."

"Yes!" the twins said in unison.

They brought out their flutes, and Mifuyu slapped their hands, eliciting the tell-tale flash of a connect skill. Then the three of them attacked in tandem, and the case containing the giant bear was torn to shreds.

"The wall disappeared!" Iroha gasped.

Then there was a sudden bright flash, and the bear started to move.

"What!?" Iroha gasped. "That thing over there just started to move!"

"I knew there'd be a trap," Mifuyu said. "Everyone, stay on your guard!"

Ashley summoned her giant teddy bear and planted it amongst the party.

"Get down, and grab onto anything you can!" she shouted. "Tomomi-chan, please try to prevent people from being blown away."

"Blown away…?" Tomomi said. "Okay…"

And that was when the giant bear suddenly expelled a giant blast of wind. Iroha squealed, kneeling down to try and avoid being blown away. Most of the others followed her example.

"W-what's with the blast of wind!?" she gasped.

"Miss Iroha!" Sana said, planting her shield in the ground and hunkering down behind it. "Stay behind my shield!"

"Tsuruno, hold onto my halberd!" Yachiyo said.

"Aye-aye, sir!" Tsuruno said.

"Mad dog! Use your hammer!" Kanagi said.

"Whoooooa! Okaaay!" Felicia said.

"Argh, no use!" Rena gasped. "My trident's coming loose!"

"You didn't shove it in hard enough, Rena-chan!" Kaede said.

"There's three of us hanging on, including Momoko!" Rena said. "I can't support that many!"

"Well sorry for being so heavy!" Momoko said.

"L-let me help you out!" Tomomi said.

Though the trident was on the verge of coming loose, a strange effect occurred. It didn't stop slipping free of the ground, but it went into slow motion, coming free bit by bit.

"Why the hell's the wind so crazy!?" Kyouko gasped. "We're gonna get blown away at this rate! And y'all, quit grabbing onto my legs! My spear's gonna come out of the ground, idiot!"

"S-sorry!" Mifuyu said. "My weapon can't dig into the ground!"

"And all we have are flutes!" Tsukasa and Tsukuyo said in unison.

"This isn't gonna work!" Kyouko groaned. "I'm slipping!"

"Miss Sakura! Grab onto my hand!" Ashley shouted.

"I can't quite reach!" Kyouko shouted. "And if I let go I'll be blown away for sure!"

"Then extend your spear towards me!" Ashley said.

"Alright!"

Ashley grabbed the end of Kyouko's spear haft as it extended towards her, pulling on it with a combination of physical strength and telekinesis to prevent them from sliding backwards.

Finally, the wind died off, and everyone let out a sigh of relief.

"Thanks for the help, shishou! Tsuruno said. "I would've been a goner without you."

"We managed not to get blown away, somehow," Yachiyo said. "How many of us are still here?"

"Looks like I cleared that hurdle," Ashley said. "We're all still here, aren't we?"

"Sana-chan and I are here!" Iroha said.

"Yes!" Sana said.

"I'm doing okay!" Felicia said.

"I'm still here as well!" Kanagi said.

"I'm still here too!" Mifuyu said. "The twins are with me!"

"For sure!" the twins said in unison.

"Dammit, I feel like I'm getting into debt here," Kyouko muttered.

"We're all here!" Momoko said.

"We almost got blown away, but Miss Tomomi saved us somehow!" Kaede said.

"I'm still here too!" Tomomi said.

"Then that's everyone," Yachiyo said.

The giant bear that had attempted to blow them away stepped forward, causing the floor to shake a little.

"Miss Yachiyo! The rumour's coming!" Iroha exclaimed.

"Well, we've finally gotten everyone assembled to take on the Magius together," Yachiyo said. "Let's quickly defeat this rumour and continue on!"

"It was a trap, just like Miss Mifuyu said," Iroha said. "We only dodged it thanks to Miss Taylor's quick thinking…"

"Or I might almost say… her prescience…" Kanagi murmured.

"Who cares about that right now!?" Felicia said. "Let's kick this rumour's butt!"

"Agreed," Kanagi said. "Our enemy won't wait for us to stop chatting!"

The bear raised its claws into the air and swiped down at the party, but Sana leapt in and raised her shield, blocking the attack with ease.

"I'll slow it down!" Tomomi shouted. "Anyone who can attack from range, please do so!"

She raised her dual knives into the air and brought the points together, aiming at the bear's head. As it drew back for another attack, its movements appeared to slow down in real time.

Following her instructions, Iroha fired a barrage of arrows, and Ashley summoned a quintet of small floating teddy heads which fired some sort of beam at the giant bear. Tsuruno charged fire into her fans and flung it at the rumour, and Yachiyo flung her halberd at it.

The missiles sped towards the bear, but… as they drew close, they too slowed down, until they were almost motionless. Even Ashley's beams were only inching forward at a snail's pace.

"R-right, then… close-range attacks!" Tomomi said. "I'll release it in ten seconds! Ten… nine…"

Momoko, Ashley, Yachiyo, Felicia, and Kyouko leapt in with their respective melee weapons.

"…three… two… one… aaaand, release!" Tomomi shouted.

And, just seconds before the five of them entered into weapon's range, everything that had slowed down abruptly returned to normal speed. The missiles and beams all slammed into the bear, and moments later it found itself turned into a pincushion by the five attackers.

"That's quite the impressive magic, Tomomi-chan," Mifuyu said. "I knew you gave me a basic rundown before, but… seeing it in action is something else."

"T-thank you," Tomomi said. "But I don't know how it helps me to save people…"

After taking a series of hits from the close-range attackers, the bear managed to recover and let out a roar, spinning in place, attempting to smack them all back. Only Kyouko and Momoko managed to dodge the attack, meaning that Ashley, Yachiyo, and Felicia were sent flying back.

"Well, I do have one idea about that, Tomomi-chan," Ashley said, picking herself up. "If a soul gem is shattered, there is a limited window within which it can be repaired, but couldn't your power be used to extend that window?"

"Eh… well… I don't really know," Tomomi said. "I mean… maybe?"

"Huh?" Mifuyu said. "What's this about a limited window… are you saying it's actually possible to restore a shattered soul gem!?"

"Well, there exist magical girls who could do it," Ashley said. "There might even be one with us now… but the window is a matter of seconds, so it's not really useful to know unless you're the person who has that power."

"You're saying… one of us here… might be able to do it?" Iroha said.

"That's speculation," Ashley said. "So don't pay it too much mind. It's just that, normally, healing magic is pretty fast, so it's weird that yours is so slow… it makes me wonder if maybe it's not really healing at all."

"Ehh… but it's pretty obviously healing," Iroha said.

"Hmm, for example, consider Yuma-chan," Ashley said. "Her magic isn't healing, but it does look like it, doesn't it?"

"Huh? Yuma-chan? If that's not healing, then what is it?" Iroha asked.

"Yuma-chan's magic is 'repair'," Ashley said. "It'll work on inanimate objects too, for example. So it's not healing."

"That… seems like just semantics," Iroha said.

"It might be, but when it's magic, semantics can make a big difference," Ashley said.

While the two of them were chatting, Sana stepped in to block a barrage of what seemed to be the bear's claws, and then Felicia and Yachiyo leapt back into the fray. Together with Kyouko and Momoko, they encircled the rumour, attacking it from all sides.

"We should not just stand here and watch!" Tsukuyo said suddenly. "Tsukasa-chan! Let's do that!"

"R-right, I'm on it!" Tsukasa said. "For sure!"

They raised their flutes to their lips.

"Flute Blossom Resonance!"

The rumour paused in its attack to clap its paws to its ears, freezing in place and trembling.

"Right, now it's our turn!" Rena declared. "Kaede! Hold it in place for me!"

"R-right!" Kaede said.

She raised her staff, and vines sprouted up from around the bear, coiling around its legs. Then Rena raised her trident and slammed it down upon the ground. Mirrors made of ice coalesced around the bear in an arc, and she leapt forward at the bear. As she moved, clones of her leapt out from the mirrors and struck all at the same time.

"I can't be the only one who doesn't do anything, now can I?" Mifuyu said. "Take this!"

She flung her chakram on a path that roughly followed behind Rena. As Rena leapt into the air just after her attack, the weapon slammed into the soldier bear, and then Rena brought a torrent of water down upon it as her finisher.

"Infinite Poseidon!"

"No, you don't need to worry about that, Azusa," Kanagi said. "I haven't done anything either."

"Did that finish it off?" Ashley said. "Sort of feels like it's still alive in there…"

She ventured forward, stopping next to Sana to wait for the water to subside. Once it was gone and the bear was proven to still be standing, Ashley flung her sword it it, striking it right between the eyes. With that, the creature crumbled into dust.

"We finally beat it," Felicia said.

"It's a bit tough fighting with so many people, isn't it?" Mifuyu said.

"Yeah, it seems that way," Iroha said.

"I sense something…" Yachiyo said.

"It's that freaky girl's magic," Felicia said.

"Yes, this has to be Alina," Sana said.

"But it's weird," Tsuruno said. "We shouldn't be able to sense anyone's magic here!"

Just then, the portal to Alina's labyrinth appeared before them. Then several more just like it appeared off to each side.

"It's a labyrinth!" Tsuruno gasped.

"And there's more than one of them!" Felicia said.

"They want to seal us away again," Iroha said. "Which means…"

But then a bunch of witches and familiars emerged from the labyrinths.

"They're using witches to protect themselves!?" Yachiyo gasped. "This hurts to admit… but they did quite a good job in preparing their defenses."

"Ya-chan!" Mifuyu said. "Look, the front doors are gone!"

"We're trapped inside!?" Yachiyo gasped.

"I don't think we were simply locked in," Mifuyu said. "The building itself may have changed."

"Then that means we're trapped in here with all these witches," Yachiyo said.

"There's bound to be more witches outside," Ashley said. "We need some people to go out there and defeat them, especially since all the feathers out there are helpless and tied up."

"If you have a way out, I'll do what I can to help outside," Mifuyu said.

"Maimai's magic should be able to get you outside," Ashley said. "They're probably almost here…"

"What are you planning to do?" Yachiyo asked.

"We'll try to draw the Magius and Eve outside," Mifuyu said. "If we gather all the Kamihama magical girls, we'll have a strategic advantage."

"Then… Mifuyu, does that mean you're going to destroy this rumour?" Yachiyo asked.

"Yes," Mifuyu said. "We'll blast Hotel Fendt Hope away, and defeat the rumour. If we can get rid of the rumour, it will completely turn the tables."

"You're not wrong," Ashley said. "But that also plays right into their hands…"

"What do you mean?" Mifuyu said.

"The Magius need Eve to get outside," Ashley said. "She can't do that easily with a giant hotel on top of her."

"But Nemu could easily destroy the rumour herself if that was the only issue," Mifuyu said. "The fact that she hasn't yet shows that it's still not to their advantage to get rid of it. This rumour is their territory. It's more dangerous not to destroy it."

"You do have a point," Ashley said. "I'm not going to try and stop you, just pointing out a few things you may have overlooked. It's true that the rumour gives them an overwhelming advantage, so even if it plays right into their hands, it may still be worthwhile for us to destroy it."

"Ya-chan, you and the others should get as deep inside the rumour as possible, as fast as you can," Mifuyu said. "Hurry and get to the underground chapel."

"You're saying you want us to take shelter there so we don't get caught in the blast," Yachiyo said.

"Yes," Mifuyu said. "We'll wait for you before we bring it down. Then… Miss Momoko, could I ask you three to join me outside?" Mifuyu asked.

"Okay," Momoko said.

"I guess so," Rena said.

At that moment, Inui and the others entered the room – Sue, Maimai, Chiyoko, and Maria.

"Perfect timing," Ashley said. "Inui, could all of you join Miss Mifuyu outside in the grounds? You'll probably need Maimai's magic to get out."

"Sure, but what'll we be doing?" Inui asked.

"You're going to bring down Fendt Hope and defeat the Rumour of the Mother Bear," Ashley said. "I think Alina has also dumped a bunch of witches out there. Tomomi-chan, why don't you join them as well? If any of the other feathers out there are willing to help, you can recruit them too."

"Okay," Tomomi said.

"Also, Maimai, when Tomoe Mami arrives, please get her back inside," Ashley said. "We're going to need her help."

"Understood!" Maimai said.

She hefted the drill in her hand and sort of punched where the doors used to be, opening up a tunnel of sorts that burrowed through empty air as well as the wall.

"If you wanna go outside, follow me!" she said.

She headed into the tunnel, followed by Inui and the rest of her group.

"Mifuyu…" Yachiyo said.

"Yes?" Mifuyu said.

"Stay safe, okay?"

Mifuyu giggled. "I should be telling you that, Ya-chan!"

"You're right," Yachiyo said. "Well, I'll see you later."

"Yes, later!"

Momoko and her team headed into the tunnel next, then Mifuyu and the twins, and finally Tomomi.

"I think this is where I jump ship too," Kyouko said. "It seems like my best chance to make an exit. Seeya."

"Don't worry about it, Miss Sakura," Ashley said. "I won't call in my favour just yet."

"Yeah yeah, I almost wish you would though," Kyouko muttered.

She followed Tomomi into the tunnel, and after a few more moments, the tunnel vanished.

"Iroha!" Yachiyo said. "Let's hurry to the underground chapel!"

"Sounds good!" Iroha said. "Looks like lots of witches and familiars got blasted out here too. They're going wild! We should strike during the chaos!"

"Felicia, let's knock these witches and familiars outta the way!" Tsuruno said.

"Ah, so we're gonna clear a path!" Felicia said.

"Yep, that's it!" Tsuruno said.

"There are seven of us, and four witches," Ashley said. "Should we split into pairs and take one each? One of us would need to take on a witch alone, though…"

"I'll take one down by myself," Yachiyo said.

"Miss Iroha, let's do this!" Sana said.

"Alright, Sana-chan!" Iroha said.

"Come on, Felicia!" Tsuruno said. "Come on, let's hurry!"

"You don't have to tell me twice!" Felicia retorted.

"I guess that means I'm with Miss Izumi," Ashley said. "Let's do this as fast as possible, but be careful!"

They each selected a witch to face down. Sana stepped forward, using her shield to defend Iroha as she barraged her target with arrows. Once the witch was weakened, Sana connected with her as she unleashed her ultimate attack, which was enough to destroy the witch. As Sana grabbed the grief seed, Iroha turned to see how the others were faring. The other three witches were already destroyed.

"Alright!" Tsuruno said. "That's the last of them, then!"

"Oh… we're the last ones, huh?" Iroha said.

"That's true, but I only just finished a few moments ago myself," Yachiyo said.

They headed forward past the blockade the soldier bear had been guarding, but it seemed that Fendt Hope had gone into a high alert mode, or perhaps they'd entered a designated high security area. Even without breaking anything, the smaller bear heads kept popping out from the walls. After defeating about four or five of them, Felicia started complaining.

"The hell is with this!?" she exclaimed. "They just keep on coming!"

"It looks like they're trying to flush us out," Iroha said.

"That rumour from earlier didn't manage to get rid of us," Yachiyo said. "So they might be trying to drive us out with the smaller rumours they have left."

"Even though we didn't go against any rumours?" Sana said.

"Mm… I guess we did talk about smashing this place up with Mifuyu earlier," Tsuruno admitted.

"Oh," Sana said.

"Not sure if that's it," Ashley said, swinging her sword and destroying a bear head in one slash. "But I can't deny it's a possibility."

"Or they're attempting to stop us from getting to the Magius," Kanagi suggested. "That's another possibility."

"True," Yachiyo said. "Either way…"

Another bear head popped out, and Yachiyo destroyed it with a thrust of her halberd.

"It doesn't matter right now why they're attacking!" she continued.

"Right, if we don't hurry the building will be blown to pieces, and us along with it!" Iroha said.

Another bear head popped out from the ceiling and attacked her from behind.

"W-where did that come from!?" she gasped.

"Behind you!" Felicia shouted, smashing the culprit into smithereens.

"There's so many of them," Yachiyo said.

"Ugh! They're even on the ceiling!" Tsuruno complained.

"I thought this looked like a ninja house, but these things really are ninjas," Felicia said.

"I'm glad they showed themselves, though," Kanagi said.

"Indeed," Yachiyo said. "It will be easier this way. We can take them out all at once! Wait…"

Suddenly, Alina's portal appeared before them once again and expelled another witch.

"A rumour, and now a witch!?" Tsuruno gasped. "This's gotta be a dream!"

"No-one's dreaming right now though, Tsuruno-chan!" Iroha said. "If they're going to throw all they can at us to force us out… then we're going to have to do the same!"

"Guess we've just gotta kill it," Ashley said. "I'll hold back the rumours."

"M-me too!" Sana said.

"I'll focus on the rumours too, so everyone else can take down the witch," Kanagi said.

So, the group split roughly in half, with Yachiyo, Iroha, Tsuruno, and Felicia focusing on the witch, while the others took out the swarms of worker bears one or two at a time. However, Iroha's role mostly came down to drawing the witch's attention while the others got in close, then building up magical power for a final attack. Still, with their teamwork, it only took a minute or two to defeat the witch even though it was quite a strong one.

"I bashed the hell outta that witch!" Felicia shouted.

Yachiyo stabbed the last remaining bear head to death, and the barrier finally settled down, fading to the standard Fendt Hope level.

"We took care of the rumours too!" Yachiyo said.

"These little guys get stronger every time you kill one of them," Ashley said. "So that would be part of why it seemed so tough…"

"You mean, every time you kill one… the others all get stronger?" Iroha said.

Ashley nodded. "That's exactly it. The others in the vicinity, at least."

"Ah… I thought they seemed stronger… than before," Sana said.

"So was that really all of them?" Iroha asked.

"Looks like it!" Tsuruno said.

"Are you okay, Miss Yachiyo?" Iroha asked. "I don't think we can fight the Magius like this…"

"It can't be worse than when we fought Miss Tomoe and all those crazed feathers," Yachiyo said.

"Though we're not in top form either," Tsuruno said.

"Just fighting the normal feathers took up so much energy," Sana said.

"Still, we can't stop here," Yachiyo said. "Let's hurry."

"Okay!" Iroha said. "We need to find the Magius as soon as possible!"

But then a familiar voice reached them.

"You don't need to come to us. We were just on our way to see you!"

The Magius stepped out from what appeared to be a niche at the far end of the corridor, well beyond the soldier bear's post. The initial speaker was Touka.

"Yup, no need to go through all that trouble," Alina said.

"You've done well to make it this far," Nemu said.

"Touka-chan and Nemu-chan," Iroha said.

"Awesome!" Felicia said. "Looks like they've found us! Let's bash their faces in!"

"But I don't understand," Iroha said.

"It's hard to believe they'd come out on their own after hiding this entire time," Kanagi said.

"Yeah, they'd never do that," Ashley said.

"Yes, they must have some other motive," Iroha said. "Otherwise it doesn't make sense."

"No, that's not what I meant…" Ashley said.

"They were stalling for a long time," Yachiyo said. "It's incredibly suspicious."

"Touka-chan, Nemu-chan, why did you come out here?" Iroha asked.

"Um, excuse me…" Ashley said.

"What, you're not going to ask me, Alina?" Alina protested.

"That speech struck a chord with us, that's why," Touka said. "We just felt so sad after hearing Mifuyu's voice."

"Yes, we heard her words, and it finally gave us some perspective," Nemu said. "It was utterly foolish and despicable of us to try to summon Walpurgisnacht."

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Ashley exclaimed.

Suddenly she leapt at Touka.

"W-wait, Miss Taylor!" Iroha protested.

But Ashley ignored the protest, running Touka through and then dragging the sword up through her head. The girl's body suddenly burst into a cloud of dust and dissipated, and Ashley caught something round before it hit the floor, turning to present it to the others. It was a Mirror Coin. Yachiyo gasped.

"I thought something was strange," Sana said.

"Right, Alina's not using English," Tsuruno said.

"Wait… I can't believe I didn't notice it," Iroha said. "Touka-chan and Nemu-chan were talking strangely too…"

"Now I understand," Yachiyo said. "They were freeing witches and familiars. So these Magius are copies from Endless Mirrors."

"Huh, whaaat!?" Felicia gasped. "These guys are fakes!?"

"That's what I was trying to tell you," Ashley said. "Sorry for startling you, Miss Tamaki, but no-one was giving me a chance to speak, so I figured I should just show, not tell."

"Guess you're onto us," Nemu said. "But you're going to fight us, even after we said we would cooperate with you?"

"But you're just a bunch of familiars!" Felicia said.

"It'd be a real pain having more than one of you on the battlefield," Tsuruno said. "It's better if we take care of you now."

"Yeah, we don't need two of Touka-chan or Nemu-chan!" Iroha said.

"Besides, you might say you'll cooperate with us," Ashley said. "But that's just a ruse to get close so you can stab us in the back, right? That's what the Mirror copies are usually like."

Alina giggled. "In that case, let us play our roles until the bitter end!"

She unleashed her signature beam attack upon the entire party, giggling like a maniac. Meanwhile, Nemu flung out a swarm of pages which seemed to act like knives. But Sana jumped in front to block both attacks.

"Sana-chan, you're so reliable!" Iroha said.

"That's because I have to protect you, Miss Iroha!" Sana said.

"Even though they're just inferior copies, it's probably a good thing I took out Touka first," Ashley mused. "If she'd decided to use her ultimate attack…"

"Hah!" Nemu said. "You think we're inferior, do you?"

With a smirk, she opened her book. If it was the real Nemu, that would have been the attack that temporarily manifests a bunch of rumours and orders them to attack. However, this Nemu was only a copy… so instead, what poured out was a swarm of Mirror familiars, a mix of the easel type and the flashlight type.

"Ehhh!? Familiars!?" Iroha gasped.

Ashley grabbed two of her floating teddy heads and aimed them at the familiars, firing beams at them one at a time. They seemed to be quite weak, so a single shot was enough to take one out. The few that avoided her barrage were taken down by Yachiyo, Tsuruno, and Felicia.

"Hmm… as far as magic elements go, Miss Yui should be super-effective here," Ashley mused. "Both Alina and Nemu-chan have the forest element, so they're strong versus Miss Nanami. Though, that's assuming the Mirror Witch correctly mimics the element… they could actually be null element… wait, do copies count as fiction? Is Kensei also super-effective? I did take out the Touka copy in one blow…"

While Ashley was talking to herself, Iroha unleashed a barrage of arrows upon the pair. Felicia leapt in with her hammer to bash Alina on the head, and Yachiyo followed her in with her halberd. As for Nemu, Kanagi and Tsuruno leapt in to attack her. Between the four of them and Iroha's barrage, the pair didn't stand a chance, and they crumbled quickly.

Kanagi let out a sigh of relief.

"They managed to get their hands on some really well-made copies," she said.

"They were noticeably weaker than the real thing, though," Yachiyo said. "I doubt those were the only copies."

"You can expect to run into copies of everyone here," Ashley said. "Well… I'm not sure if they could get a copy of me, since I've never even been to Endless Mirrors… but I can't say for certain that they can't."

"You did join us briefly in Endless Mirrors," Yachiyo pointed out.

"Yeah, but that was an offshoot witch, right?" Ashley said. "I don't think it had developed the ability to copy people yet. I could be wrong, of course…"

"Then we'll need to be careful from now on," Kanagi said.

"Yes, what an underhanded move," Yachiyo said.

Just then, Inui's voice issued from Ashley's communicator.

"Ashley, you there? Miss Tomoe just entered the building, but she's heading for the third floor lounge rather than your location… is that okay?"

Ashley took out the communicator and pressed the speak button.

"It should be fine," she said. "I know she needs to do something to open the way for us, but I'm not completely sure where it is… I only assumed it was here at the blockade, but it might be on the third floor. I'm sure she'll link up with us soon enough if that's necessary."

"Okay," Inui said. "Then let me know once you're safely underground, okay?"

"I'll do that," Ashley said. "Ashley out."

"So that's why it looks like a dead end here…?" Iroha said.

"Yeah," Ashley said. "Miss Tomoe sealed it off with her magic, so she's the only one who can unseal it. I think it's set to allow the Magius to pass through but keep everyone else out."

They made for the far end of the short corridor beyond the blockade. There was a painting of a teddy bear with a bouquet of flowers at its feet on the end wall.

"It does look like this is as far as we can go," Sana said.

"So there's an entrance hidden here," Iroha said.

"Do we really have to wait?" Felicia asked. "It's underground, so shouldn't we just break through the floorboards? Time to get hammering!"

"Wait!" Tsuruno said, grabbing her arm.

"I don't think that'll help," Ashley said.

"What gives!?" Felicia protested.

"This might be a trap to release a rumour!" Tsuruno said.

"Then how're we gonna find it!?" Felicia exclaimed.

"Like I said… just be patient a little longer!" Ashley said.

"We're in a hurry here!" Felicia said. "Just let me hammer the place!"

She broke free of Tsuruno's grasp and raised her hammer again, but as she was about to swing it down, a bullet struck it, completely severing the head from the haft. Due to the sudden lack of weight, Felicia lost her balance and fell over

"Another enemy!?" Felicia gasped. "Who the heck knocked me over!?"

Mami had shown up behind them.

"I'm sorry, that was me!" she said. "I made it just in time!"

"Miss Tomoe!?" Yachiyo gasped. "You really did come…"

"Huh…? Were you expecting me?" Mami asked.

"I was expecting you, if no-one else was," Ashley said.

"You've recovered already!?" Kanagi asked.

"What the heck!?" Felicia exclaimed, jumping to her feet. "Are you here for another fight?"

"She doesn't have the rumour anymore," Tsuruno said. "I'll handle this, guys!"

But as she raised her fan and charged flames into it, Ashley grabbed her arm and dragged her back.

"Have you been listening to anything I said!?" she asked.

"I might've missed it!" Tsuruno admitted.

"Yes, Miss Taylor claimed that you need to open the way for us," Yachiyo said.

"That's right!" Mami said. "Don't misunderstand me! I came here to help you!"

"She's completely free from the brainwashing," Kanagi said. "Her heart has actual depth now."

"Thank goodness," Mami said. "It sounds like you've confirmed that I'm not your enemy."

"It's good to see that you're alright," Kanagi said.

"Yes, I'm glad you don't have any injuries," Yachiyo said.

"Indeed," Mami said. "It's thanks to you peeling me away from the rumour so cleanly. Only my magic was affected. I'm very sorry about everything, Miss Tamaki. I want to make it up to you somehow."

"N-no, don't worry about it!" Iroha said. "I'm just glad you're back to your normal self."

"I'm really so grateful to all of you," Mami said.

"So, why'd you stop me from hammering?" Felicia asked. "Boooo."

"Breaking the floor would just attract another rumour," Mami said. "Let me handle this."

"So you can do something about this, Mami?" Tsuruno asked.

"I was the one who hid the chapel," Mami said.

"Huh!?" Tsuruno gasped.

"Why are you acting so surprised?" Ashley asked. "I literally explained that like, two minutes ago."

"I hid their chapel, and isolated it from this rumour," Mami continued.

"Does that mean only you can remove the spell?" Iroha asked. "That's what Miss Taylor said…"

"It does," Mami said. "If we don't do something about this first, even if Fendt Hope were to be destroyed, it might not have an effect on where the Magius are hiding. Fighting would just be a waste of time and energy."

"I see," Yachiyo said. "I understand the situation now. I'm sorry to ask you this after you just recovered, but can you remove the spell?"

"Yes," Mami said. "That's what I came to do."

She stepped forward and laid a hand upon the painting, closing her eyes. The paint faded away, revealing a mass of yellow ribbons underneath.

"Here it is," she said. "A rumour will come out as soon as the spell is removed. Get ready!"

"Okay!" Iroha said.

She summoned a knife and cut apart the ribbons to reveal a doorway. The barrier changed to hostile mode, but the rumour that popped out this time was not one of the ubiquitous bear heads but rather the Saint of Kamihama rumour, now being worn by a mannequin. The rumour giggled, blocking the way forward.

"This is the rumour!?" Yachiyo gasped.

"It's a mere vestige of its original self," Mami said. "It shouldn't be too hard to defeat. I've reclaimed my pride. I'm now able to accept my destiny as a magical girl. I do feel regret and pain, but I'm no longer a weak, easily manipulated girl. So this is farewell. I no longer need you in my life!"

The rumour giggled again and summoned an array of muskets. Mami copied this action, summoning an array of her own, and the two of them opened fire simultaneously. None of the bullets seemed to reach their marks, and after a moment they realized it was because Mami was shooting the rumour's bullets literally out of the air – the two barrages were cancelling out.

While Mami's array of muskets was firing non-stop, she summoned a pair to her hands and fired at the rumour directly. After a few shots, the barrage finally died off, and then Mami jumped in closer and fired a few more shots. This seemed to be enough to cause the rumour to crumble.

With the defeat of the Saint Rumour, the barrier once more returned to normal.

"The path is open," Mami said. "Miss Azusa can now destroy the Rumour of Fendt Hope. Once she does, we can regroup."

"Alright," Yachiyo said. "Thank you."

"Good luck to you," Mami said.

"Aren't you coming with us, Miss Tomoe?" Iroha asked.

"No, I will go and help defeat the Rumour of Fendt Hope," Mami said. "It's not going to be easy to defeat."

"I should've asked Kazumi-chan to come help," Ashley said. "Her aura and Madoka's combined might even make it an easy battle… oh well."

"Okay," Iroha said. "Good luck out there."

"I'll see you later," Mami said.

---

Magical Girl Corner

Whenever a new magical girl is introduced, I'll include a brief profile of her here. Some details may be redacted, or contain minor spoilers. You have been warned! The numeric ranking values are on a scale of 1 to 10.

Midori Ryo
観鳥令

Age: 15
Eye Colour: Red
Hair Colour: Blonde
Origins: Daito Ward, Kamihama, Shinriku Prefecture, Japan
Symbol: Yellow rectangle with circular hollow (like a camera)
Soul Gem: Teal oval gemstone on her necktie
Element: Fire
Weapon: Bazooka
Powers: Infallible photography
Wish: "I never want to miss the perfect shot."
Affiliation: Wings of the Magius (rank: White Feather)

Speed: 6
Magical Stamina: 6
Offensive Power: 6
Defensive Power: 8
Initial Power Usability: 6
Learned Powers: 2

Asami Fumine (Fuu)
朝実ふみね（フー）

Age: 16
Eye Colour: Blue
Hair Colour: Brown
Origins: Kochi, Kochi Prefecture, Japan
Symbol: Blue spiral
Soul Gem: Blue diamond-shaped gemstone on her forehead
Element: Forest
Weapon: Bladed tonfas
Powers: Wind manipulation
Wish: "I just don't want to be alone anymore…"
Affiliation: Wings of the Magius (rank: White Feather)

Speed: 7
Magical Stamina: 3
Offensive Power: 5
Defensive Power: 4
Initial Power Usability: 4
Learned Powers: 1

Sasaki Kazuha (Konoha)
笹木和葉（このは）

Age: 14
Eye Colour: Green
Hair Colour: Green
Origins: Kanitomi, Shinriku Prefecture, Japan
Symbol: Green spade suit
Soul Gem: Hexagonal green gemstone on her left thigh
Element: Forest
Weapon: None
Powers: Transformation of inanimate objects
Wish: "I just want to have fun once in awhile!"
Affiliation: Wings of the Magius (rank: White Feather)

Speed: 4
Magical Stamina: 7
Offensive Power: 2
Defensive Power: 8
Initial Power Usability: 6
Learned Powers: 3

Tsubame Fabíola (Amu)
燕ファビオァ（あむ）

Age: 13
Eye Colour: Grey
Hair Colour: Red
Origins: Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan
Symbol: Red eight-pointed sunburst
Soul Gem: Red oval gemstone on her chest
Element: Fire
Weapon: Twin wakizashi
Powers: Purification
Wish: "I wish for a way to prove my innocence!"
Affiliation: Wings of the Magius (rank: Black Feather)

Speed: 5
Magical Stamina: 9
Offensive Power: 6
Defensive Power: 1
Initial Power Usability: 5
Learned Powers: 1

Yaeko Mana
八重巨舞奈

Age: 14
Eye Colour: Blue
Hair Colour: Black
Origins: Takarazaki, Shinriku Prefecture, Japan
Symbol: Green double wave
Soul Gem: Circular green gemstone at her throat
Element: Water
Weapon: Wave sword
Powers: Ice manipulation
Wish: "I don't want to be separated from Kuro-chan!"
Affiliation: Wings of the Magius (rank: Black Feather)

Speed: 2
Magical Stamina: 6
Offensive Power: 8
Defensive Power: 2
Initial Power Usability: 5
Learned Powers: 0 (unknown)

Lusineh Khorenatsi (Nami)
Լուսինե խորենացի（なみ）

Age: 14
Eye Colour: Grey
Hair Colour: Brown
Origins: Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan
Symbol: Sky blue pretzel
Soul Gem: Sky blue circular gemstone on the brim of her hat
Element: Water
Weapon: Bread paddle
Powers: Expansion
Wish: "I want even more people to have an opportunity to try Dad's baking."
Affiliation: Wings of the Magius (rank: Black Feather)

Speed: 7
Magical Stamina: 5
Offensive Power: 3
Defensive Power: 7
Initial Power Usability: 6
Learned Powers: 0 (unknown)

Hachikuji Mayoi (Maimai)
八九寺真宵（まいまい）

Age: 25, but appears 14
Eye Colour: Red
Hair Colour: Black
Origins: Jouetsu, Niigata Prefecture, Japan
Symbol: Yellow snail
Soul Gem: Amber pentagram-shaped gemstone at her throat
Element: Water
Weapon: Drill
Powers: Tunnelling through space
Wish: "I wish to return home!"
Affiliation: Wings of the Magius (rank: Black Feather)

Speed: 5
Magical Stamina: 7
Offensive Power: 1
Defensive Power: 10
Initial Power Usability: 3
Learned Powers: 2

Tsukiyo Harune (Aoi)
月夜蒼音（あおい）

Age: 17
Eye Colour: Blue
Hair Colour: Green
Origins: Kihoku, Mie Prefecture, Japan
Symbol: Blue bird with spread wings
Soul Gem: Circular blue gemstone dangling at her waist
Element: Darkness
Weapon: Ocarina
Powers: Partial animal transformation
Wish: "I wish I could fly above the bay like a bird."
Affiliation: Wings of the Magius (rank: Black Feather)

Speed: 9
Magical Stamina: 12
Offensive Power: 0
Defensive Power: 2
Initial Power Usability: 1
Learned Powers: 4

Simona Anişoara Lupei (Sal)

Age: 16
Eye Colour: Red
Hair Colour: Blonde
Origins: Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
Symbol: Three red claw marks
Soul Gem: Red diamond-shaped gem at her navel
Element: Light
Weapon: Claws
Powers: Projection, intimidation
Wish: "Please put a stop to all those horrible rumours about Grandma!"
Affiliation: Wings of the Magius (rank: Black Feather)

Speed: 9
Magical Stamina: 6
Offensive Power: 7
Defensive Power: 1
Initial Power Usability: 2
Learned Powers: 2

---

Doppel Corner

Whenever a new magical girl unleashes her doppel, I'll include a doppel description here. Note that most of these are direct quotes from the Magia Record game rather than being written by me; they are simply reproduced here for interest. I'll mark any original doppels with a dagger symbol (†).

Sylvie (Ikumi Makino)

The Doppel of attention-gathering. Its form is a wind-up doll. The master of this emotion views wanting other people to smile and being desired as the same thing in some small way. Her Doppel frantically smashes its cymbals together, and anchors shoot toward the eyes of those whose attention the cymbals gather. Those cursed by the sound are then chased down by the anchors until their eyeballs are taken from them. If this Doppel is used often, the user will feel anxious unless someone is watching them at all times.

Sanngetall† (Yuuki Yumi)

The Doppel of ecstasy. Its form is a noose. The master of this emotion wants everyone to witness true talent. To those who accept their role as an audience, it will put on a dramatic magic show to wow even the most jaded audience. However, it will strangle all those who refuse to watch.

---

This chapter took longer than usual mainly because there were a lot of little fight scenes to write – the game usually doesn't fill in the fight scenes, since the combat mechanic fills it in for you. I got a block on filling them in, so I took a little break from the fic. Brainstorming profile information for the Wings of the Magius members remaining on the base also took quite awhile.

And so, somehow, I managed to release the next chapter as a sort of "Christmas present"! I'd like to post up to chapter 87 before the end of the year, but if I hit another block filling in gaps in the narrative, it could take longer. And given that the climactic fight against the Mother Bear is one of those gaps… I'll see how it goes.

As of now, every magical girl profile for a Japanese girl includes the kanji rendering of the name. It was tough to track that down for some of the minor characters such as Yuuki Yumi or Kasumi Ichika, but I managed to locate them all somehow. The discovery that the name tag in the Japanese version of the game shows the character's full name was quite helpful (in the NA version it only showed their first name).

Things are moving along here, but there's still quite a bit packed into this chapter – the end of the helipad battled, the infiltration of Fendt Hope, and even a look at what Inui was up to while everything was happening in town. Along with that, there are some hints at things to come in the present-time segments, as we're currently in a series of Flashback Episodes looking back from after everything ended.

And in a way, this chapter is bookended by its featured rumour, which seemed appropriate.