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.

114. Secrets of the Tokime

What is magic, anyway?

Not stage magic, the sleight-of-hand to create an illusion of the impossible, but real magic.

Many writers would have you believe that there are two fundamental laws of magic – the law of similarity, that an effect resembles its cause, and the law of contagion, that things which were once in contact continue to affect each other even long after the contact has been severed.

But are those really fundamental laws of magic? I cannot deny that they have, on some occasions, produced results, but I believe there is a far more fundamental aspect to magic than that.

Magic is emotions.

Fear, anger, happiness, grief… the many emotions that humans experience give rise to the phenomenon known as magic, and harnessing your emotions is the key to harnessing magic itself. Perhaps that is why there are so few true mages in the world – harnessing one's emotions is by no measure a small task, but rather one which can take years of practice to master; and that is only the beginning of the path of magic.

And yet, despite the enormous hurdle of mastering magic, there are hundreds of thousands of magic users around the world. Indeed, they are so common that you, dear reader, have probably already met one without realizing it. How can this abundance be reconciled with the difficulty of mastering magic from scratch?

The answer lies with an enigmatic creature that lurks in the shadows, using technology far beyond what humanity can currently comprehend to compress a person's soul into a solid object, a state which seemingly makes magical usage and control more efficient by many orders of magnitude. It is a cheat of sorts, which is why I have excluded the many people benefitting from it from the ranks of true mages.

But just because humanity cannot comprehend such technology now, there is no reason to think that we shall never be able to. And so, we come to the purpose of this text, where I lay out, in as much detail as I can muster, the ins and outs of how magic works, whether you master it the hard way or have it handed to you on a silver platter.

~Excerpt from "A Treatise on Magic"~
~by Kagenui Yozuru~

---

"Are you really sure it's okay for me to come?" Momo asks. "I'm not a magical girl…"

"It ain't like it's something dangerous," Kyouko retorts. "Those Magius chicks're just gonna talk at us for awhile. But if you got somewhere better to be, then beat it."

"Huh? No, I don't have anywhere else to be, onee-san," Momo says. "That said… I never thought that magical girls would turn into witches…"

We'd just finished explaining that to her a few minutes ago, and it seems she's taking it quite well. Mind you, I'm sure it's far easier to take the truth if you're not a magical girl.

"So you see, it ain't all sunshine and roses as a magical girl," Kyouko says.

"But didn't you say these Magius figured out a way to not turn into a witch?" Momo points out.

"Well… I s'pose," Kyouko says.

"Hey, looks like this is our stop," I speak up.

We pile off the train in Minaminagi Ward. There are twenty-five of us in total. Besides the eight of the Holy Brigade, we also have Momo, Mabayu, me, and Inui, of course. Then there are the girls of West Mitakihara – Hiyori, Komachi, Elise, Liliane, Claire, Sachie, and Shiori. The girls of East Mitakihara are also present – Koharu, Tamura, Hikari, and Chihana – as well as Mari and Noriko from North Mitakihara. They had coincidentally joined up with us at the station, so we ended up travelling together. The two Masuyo siblings are still in the same body, so technically you could say there are actually twenty-six of us.

We make our way to Minaminagi Seaside Park, where we find Mitama acting as a gatekeeper of sorts. Pinned on her chest is a brooch with the nine-petaled flower representing the Kamihama Magia Union.

"Good afternoon, everyone!" Mitama says cheerfully. "You're here for the meeting, right? Just a moment!"

She turns around and takes a few steps forward, and the barrier of Fendt Hope appears before her.

"Go right on in!" she says.

We all step into the barrier, and Momo gasps as the grounds of Fendt Hope spread out before us.

"W-whoa!" she says. "What on earth is this…?"

"This is Hotel Fendt Hope," I say. "A secret place for magical girls."

"Is it really okay for me to be here if I'm not a magical girl?" Momo asks.

"I think it's fine," I say. "Hmm… it looks like it shrank a little, but… I imagine the assembly hall will be in the same place. Follow me."

I lead them to the assembly hall, where we find everyone else also waiting. I can see Yukika and the Amane twins up on the balcony, but the Magius and the Crescent Moon Villa girls apparently haven't arrived yet. After a minute or so, I spot the Tokime group together with Oriko's group, and I work my way over to greet them. Inui however spots Riko and Rui and separates from me, heading over to greet them.

"Good afternoon, Miss Chika, Miss Tokime, Miss Hiroe, Miss Toki," I say. "Good afternoon, Miss Mikuni."

"Good afternoon, Miss Taylor," Oriko says.

"Good afternoon, Miss Ashley," Chika says. "I am sure you'd like to hear the full story of the last few days, but… perhaps now is not the time, yes?"

"That's… true," I admit. "Unless it can be summarized in a few sentences…"

"Not a chance!" Chiharu exclaims. "I don't even know where to begin…"

"Then, we should meet up after this," I suggest. "We should also bring Miss Hozumi as well, I think… there's something I'd like to check out which might be related to the Tokime clan. Was Miss Koito helpful, by the way?"

"Yeah… her magic was amazing," Sunao says. "We learned some very disturbing things about the Mikoshiba… I almost wish we didn't know about them…"

"Miss Akatsuki also revealed some more details of our history," Shizuka says. "I always thought the Tokime clan had its origins in the Heian period, but it seems like the separate histories of the Tokime and the Mikoshiba got fused together into a single legend…"

"Huh… so you're saying the Mikoshiba does date back to the Heian period?" I say.

"They claim direct descent from Queen Himiko, actually," Chiharu says. "There's no proof though…"

"But we did find historical references to the Mikoshiba from the Heian period," Chika says. "They had a different name back then, but… it seems they were around."

"It was a bit of a let-down to learn that the Tokime's history of wishing for the benefit of Nippon was a complete fiction," Shizuka says. "That we were actually refugees fleeing from war on the mainland…"

"Anyway, we can talk about all of this in more detail afterwards, right?" I say. "Shall we meet at Miss Hozumi's café? Do you know where that is, Miss Chika?"

"Yes, I believe so," she says.

"Then I'll see you all there after this meeting," I say. "Miss Mikuni, I'll leave it up to you four whether you want to come. I don't think I need you to be there, but if there's something that you think I should hear straight from you, then feel free to attend."

"Understood!" Koito says.

"I will keep your words in mind," Oriko says.

I move away from that group to see if there's anyone else who I might want to speak to. Then I spot Tsubasa, Mayoi, and the Araragi sisters entering together. Like last time, they seem to have brought Episode along as well. Mayoi spots me and waves.

"Ashley-chan!" she exclaims. "Over here!"

I work my way over to them and greet them.

"Good afternoon, Miss Hanekawa," I say. "Good afternoon, Maimai. Um… and also Misses Araragi."

"Come on, you can just refer to us by our given name," Karen says. "We're used to it anyway, most of our friends know both of us so there's no helping it. Plus we have an older brother too…"

"Alright then," I say. "I'll keep that in mind… and who's this little girl?"

"I'm not a little girl!" Episode complains.

"Oh, this one is Epi-chan," Mayoi says. "She showed up all of a sudden so I dragged her along."

"I didn't want to come!" Episode complains. "And stop calling me Epi-chan! My name is Episode! Episode! It's not that complicated! Geez… what the heck is with all these magical girls, anyway…? I've never seen so many in one place before…"

"So your name is Episode-chan," I say. "That's a pretty unusual name…"

"You shut the hell up," Episode retorts. "I don't want to talk to you. Beat it."

I glance at Tsubasa.

"Does she have a problem with me…?"

"I really couldn't say," Tsubasa says. "Come to think of it… why were you even in town in the first place, Episode-chan? I thought you said you were going home for good… and that was about two years ago. Don't tell me you got lost for two whole years?"

"I-it's not my fault this country won't allow minors to ride on a plane alone!" Episode complains. "I was able to come to this country because Lady Dramaturgy was accompanying me, but then she went home ahead of me, and now they won't even let me back on no matter how much I beg them! They won't even believe me when I tell them I'm fifteen years old! It's not my fault my body won't grow!"

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," I say. "Since you're a magical girl, it could be your fault."

"Oh, then you're just like me!" Mayoi says. "I was stuck at that age for several years too…"

"And I can't seem to contact Lady Dramaturgy ever since then…" Episode laments.

"Actually, I recently heard from someone that Miss Dramaturgy was killed by Walpurgisnacht last year," I say.

"E-ehhh!?" Episode gasps, suddenly beginning to cry. "N-no way… t-then will I be stuck here forever!?"

"Come on, don't cry, Episode-chan," Tsubasa says. "I'm sure they'll let you on the plan if Hitagi and I accompany you. Will that be acceptable to you?"

"Ehh… I guess," Episode says, reluctantly. "T-thank you… I suppose…"

I decide not to press her for details this time. I learned quite a bit from doing so last time, but… there doesn't seem to be any need to repeat that conversation. Looking around a bit more, I spot several of the Hohzuki team – Matsuri, Kaede, Suzune, Honoka, and a girl I don't recognize. I don't see Kagari or any of the older members. Matsuri spots me and waves as I work my way over to them.

"Good afternoon, Miss Matsuri," I say. "Good afternoon… has the adoption been finalized? Should I be calling you Miss Yunagi instead of Miss Amano?"

Suzune shrugs. "Either is fine."

"It's not finalized, but she's living with them already," Matsuri says. "Apparently she can't get along with her new older brother though."

"Because he's annoying," Suzune retorts. "He just lazes around all day and plays video games. If he doesn't want to go to college he should just get a job or something."

"How old is he…?" I wonder.

"Probably around twenty years old?" Suzune says. "I haven't asked him…"

"Alright, and… who is the new girl?" I ask.

"Ah, right," Matsuri says. "You haven't met yet, but I told you about her – this is Aina-chan. Aina-chan, meet Ashley Taylor."

"It's nice to meet you, Miss Aina," I say.

"I don't need your false pleasantries," Aina retorts, glaring at me. "Matsuri seems to trust you, so I won't kill you for now, but if you prove to be a threat…!"

I blink in surprise at the girl's hostility.

«Um… is she okay, Miss Matsuri?» I ask on a private channel.

«Well… I wish I could say yes, but… I think I already mentioned that she lost her entire immediate family to a fire, right?»

«Yes, I think you mentioned that,» I say.

«The police investigation concluded it was an accident, but according to Aina-chan, it was arson,» Matsuri says. «When we went to pick her up from the hospital, she was gone… I found her burning the alleged arsonists to a crisp. It was… horrible.»

«Huh… so she's the type to want to take on everything herself,» I muse. «And if she already killed them, it might be quite difficult to prove it was arson…»

«Yeah… I want to trust her words and believe it was arson, but… with the alleged culprits dead, I'm not quite sure if I can,» Matsuri admits. «Still… I got her to promise not to do it again, so… I think things will work out…? And she gets on oddly well with onee-chan, too, which makes me feel a bit better – since onee-chan has no other friends.»

«Sounds like she's a lot like Miss Kagari, so maybe that's why they get along,» I say. «Though that also feels a touch ominous…»

«Well… yeah, I'll admit that,» Matsuri says. «Kaede-chan is still keeping an eye on the two of them, just in case.»

At that point, Tsukuyo raises her voice, calling for silence. I look up and see that the Crescent Moon Villa team is now up there, together with Mitama, Touka, Nemu, Mifuyu, and even Hijiri. Once everyone has quieted down, Mifuyu steps forward to give the overall explanation of what the Magius did, with some help from Mitama and a few interjections from Nemu and Touka. It's basically the same explanation that Mitama gave two timelines ago, or Tsukuyo in the previous timeline. Once the initial explanation is done, they field questions from several magical girls, mostly those from Kamihama.

Once all the questions have dried up, Iroha steps forward.

"The Wings of the Magius have done some terrible things," she says. "And some among you might be dissatisfied with the fact that their leaders are still standing among us. That's why we've decided to hold a trial for the key figures of the Wings of the Magius. The people on trial will be Satomi Touka, Hiiragi Nemu, Alina Gray, Azusa Mifuyu, Kagura San, Amane Tsukuyo, Amane Tsukasa, and Yakumo Mitama. The trial will be conducted in three stages. We've emailed surveys to all the black and white feathers, as well as most of the magical girls of Shinriku Prefecture who pitched in to defeat Eve and Walpurgisnacht, so please submit them before the deadline, as your thoughts could influence the final verdict. You are also welcome to personally attend the trials, if you wish."

She waits a few moments to gauge the audience reaction, but only silence greets her. The talk of the trial has turned the mood sombre, so she decides to forge on to the next topic.

"Although they've done some terrible things, they ultimately got started while thinking of the future of magical girls," Iroha says. "They started out with noble goals, but went astray somewhere along the way. I, too, share those noble goals. I, too, wish to save magical girls from the terrible fate of turning into wishes. I, too, believe that magical girls should be allowed to have hope. I, too, want magical girls to be able to smile. As one of my friends so eloquently phrased it: if someone tells me that it's a mistake to have hope, I will tell them they are wrong, every single time! No matter how many times they say it, I will reject it over and over and over again!"

Her words elicit a round of cheers from the audience, and she gives them time to die down before continuing.

"I believe that the first step towards that goal is cooperation," Iroha says. "Kyuubey prefers it when we magical girls fight one another, because our petty squabbles distract us from the things that truly matter. I don't want to let Kyuubey have his way with us. Instead of fighting amongst themselves, I believe that magical girls should help one another and form a united front against Kyuubey. We need to make ourselves into a force that can at least stand on equal ground with Kyuubey."

There are a few more scattered cheers, so she waits for them to die down before continuing.

"To that end, I've decided to create an organization to foster that spirit of cooperativity!" she proclaims. "I'm calling it the Kamihama Magia Union. It will be a mutual aid organization with two key goals. Firstly, we will work to ensure that our members get as many grief seeds as they need, and if necessary, help weaker members to fight witches until they can grow stronger. Secondly, if hostile magical girls appear from outside, we will leap to the defence of our members, to negotiate and, if absolutely necessary, even fight by their side. I'll accept anyone who wishes to join the union, even if you're not from Kamihama. For those of you who came from far away and wish to return to your friends and family in your hometowns, I'd like to encourage you to create similar local unions. Thank you for listening!"

There's another round of cheers, but unlike last time, Iroha doesn't step back, instead waiting for the cheers to die down again.

"There is one other among us who has already done something similar to what I suggested," Iroha says. "I'm going to ask her to step up and explain in her own words."

With that, Iroha steps back and lets Hijiri take the stage.

"Um, good afternoon, everyone," Hijiri says. "In the spirit of cooperation that Miss Tamaki espouses, I've created something to ease the process – a mobile social media app made by magical girls, for magical girls. You'll be able to read special news posts pertaining to magical girls, interact with other magical girls on our message board, and more. It's still in development, but we already have a news feed running thanks to some magical girls who have agreed to write articles, including Kamihama's very own Midori Ryo. The message board should be up and running within a few hours, so anyone who'd like to try out the app can take one of the cards that will be handed out after the meeting. All you have to do is scan the code on the card and accept the prompt, and your phone will automatically download and install the app. Even if you'd prefer to wait until the app is more mature, you can take a card now and use it later on – the code is designed to never expire and will always link to the latest version of the app. Thank you for listening!"

With that, she steps back and allows Mifuyu to take the stage once more. Mifuyu says a few more words and then declares the assembly over. As everyone begins to stream out, I see that a table has been set up in the entrance hall containing stacks of cards bearing a QR code and some basic information about the app, including its name. I already have it installed, of course, so I don't take one for myself, but it looks like a lot of girls are interested. I wait for Inui near the entrance, but Hijiri finds me first.

"Looks like it's gonna be a success," she says. "Have you sent it to your friends in France and America yet? The English localization is almost done, so it'll probably be available starting from tomorrow. I haven't even gotten started on French however."

"No I haven't… I'll send them an invite soon though," I say. "I'm sure they'll be willing to join… and I'll let Miss Charmchi know of it when I visit her the day after tomorrow. I guess I should take a card for that actually, she could display it on the wall or something…"

"Well, even if those ones run out, I can make some new ones, so don't worry," Hijiri says.

"By the way, other than Miss Midori, who've you recruited to write news articles?" I ask.

"Well… Miss Suzune agreed to write Hohzuki-focused articles," Hijiri says. "And one of the girls we recently released from the freezer offered to write Asunaro-focused articles. For Mitakihara though, we don't have anyone yet… and of course, we also need people from the mainland and also outside Japan. So it's still a long way from where you want it to be, but we'll get there slowly."

"Of course we will," I say. "And you'll be on the lookout for assassins, saboteurs, or whatever from the Vatican, right?"

"Yeah… I've set up a system for frequent, multiply-redundant backups," Hijiri says. "Even if the main host is hacked and wiped clean, I'll be able to have a clone up and running within the hour. Even if the entire backup network is compromised, I've set it to regularly download the backups to my local hard drive. The only other weak point is when the app checks if there's an update available, but the update check mechanism uses a secure handshake mechanism to make sure it's talking to the real update server, and the download is also signed with my private key, so I don't think there's any mundane way to interfere in that process. If the domain name was taken over and redirected to a different server, the app would detect an issue and refuse to download, and if the download was somehow tampered with, the signature check would fail and the app would delete it and report an error. I can't say there's absolutely no way to hack the process, but… I've made it as safe and secure as I possibly can. I even took the trouble of using cryptographic algorithms that are theoretically uncrackable with quantum computing."

"I barely understood all of that," I say. "But I guess the long and short of it is… it's almost impossible to break the system without using magic."

"I have some safeguards against magic tampering too, but I can't predict every type of magic attack, so it's possible they could get in with magic," Hijiri says. "But yes, I can't think of any way to break the system without magic. I spent a few days actually trying to find ways, you know. I even asked the computer club at my school for ideas and tried them all. Of course, I fixed any issues I found while doing that. Wakana-chan helped me a bit too, actually."

"Is she thinking of becoming a magical girl?" I ask.

"She doesn't seem to be able to see Kyuubey," Hijiri says. "But who knows what will happen in the future… I've told her everything though, so if she does decide to, at least it won't be under false pretences like most of us."

At that moment, Inui emerges from the crowd and spots us. Coeurl is also with her.

"There you are, Ashley!" she exclaims. "I thought you'd left already!"

"I was waiting for you, and also the Tokime group," I say. "So of course I haven't left."

"Hm, well that's good, then," Inui says. "So, I'm gonna join that app immediately. See? I already snagged a card."

She waves the card in front of me, then whips out her phone and uses the camera app to scan the code, then taps the screen a couple times.

"Ohhh! It's really downloading!" she exclaims.

"Of course it is," Hijiri retorts. "I tested it thoroughly."

"By the way, did Inui already pass on the invitation, Coeurl?" I ask.

"Yes, she did," Coeurl says. "I haven't decided whether to accept yet."

"I have something else to do first though," I say. "If you're coming, how about we meet at the train station later? I'm not sure exactly when, but maybe an hour or two from now?"

Coeurl nods. "Alright," she says. "I'll keep that in mind."

As Coeurl makes her way out of the building, Chika approaches me. Although she emerged from the hall with the Tokime trio, they've split off from her to head for the table with the PMMM cards.

"Miss Ashley!" she says. "I didn't expect you to wait for us…"

"Ah, there you are, Miss Chika," I say. "I was technically waiting for Inui, who arrived just a minute before you, but if you'd like to go to the café together too, then that's fine with me. If you have somewhere else to go first, that's also fine."

"No, we don't have anywhere else to be," Chika says.

"Do you know if Miss Mikuni will be attending?" I ask.

"She didn't say," Chika says.

"I see, I suppose we'll find out then," I say.

I make for the door, and Inui and Chika follow me. The Tokime trio join us a moment later, Chiharu waving the card she took.

"I got us a card, Chika-chan!" she says.

"Huh? You only got one?" Chika says.

"It says it can be used as many times as you want, so we only need one, right?" Chiharu says.

"Oh, I see," Chika says. "Then I guess I'll scan it later."

"Oh, it's Miss Taylor," Chiharu says. "Right, we agreed to meet up after…"

"I'm not sure if I want to discuss what happened," Shizuka says with a sigh. "But I suppose I cannot just keep everything hidden… plus I owe you for your help so far. Let us proceed to the meeting place."

We head outside, emerging back into Minaminagi Seaside Park, and I lead the way to Shizuku's café. It seems we've arrived before Shizuku herself, however. I hope she shows up later, but we don't exactly need her right now, I guess. After ordering drinks, we all settle down at a table to discuss what happened on the Tokime side after reviving Akatsuki Youha.

---

"Ugh, we really gotta walk up that narrow path!?" Komaki protested.

"How else do you intend to get to this hidden village?" Oriko asked. "Or would you prefer to wait for us in the town at the bottom of the mountain?"

"I'm sure my parents wouldn't mind you staying with them for a few days," Sunao spoke up.

"No, I already came all this way," Komaki retorted. "I ain't turning back now, geez."

"In that case, we should hurry," Shizuka said. "It's starting to get dark… we could get lost in the forest if we dally too long."

"Alright, alright, I'm coming," Komaki said. "But really, who actually says 'dally' these days…?" she muttered.

They continued up the narrow mountain path until they emerged into a large clearing occupied by a surprisingly large village.

"W-whoa!" Kirika gasped. "It's about ten times bigger than I expected! I thought it'd be just four or five houses… and the houses are bigger than I thought they'd be too…"

"I'll take you to my house," Shizuka said. "Please, come right this way."

There weren't many people out at this time of night, but those few who were out nodded to Shizuka and the others, greeting them and welcoming them back. Shizuka led the girls to her house and pushed the door open without knocking.

"I'm home!" she called.

Mrs Tokime emerged from the living room, followed by Ms Hiroe.

"Welcome back, Shizuka," Mrs Tokime said.

"Welcome back, Charu," Ms Hiroe said.

"Oh…? Who might these girls be?" Mrs Tokime asked.

"My friend in the city knew a magi— I mean, a diviner who can read minds," Chika explained. "The other three are her friends."

"I see," Mrs Tokime said. "It's nice to meet you."

Oriko bowed. "The pleasure is all mine," she said. "I am Mikuni Oriko. My friends are Kure Kirika, Asako Komaki, and her little sister, Koito."

"I'm the one who can read minds," Koito piped up.

"The Mikoshiba tried to commit suicide again while you were gone," Mrs Tokime said. "She bit her tongue when we weren't watching. It's only thanks to Ms Hiroe that she's still alive."

"My mom's awesome!" Chiharu exclaimed.

"That said, I'm not sure how long I can keep her alive," Ms Hiroe said. "I managed to somehow stop the bleeding, and we've taken measures to prevent her from injuring herself further, but there's still a chance she could die from the injury… I'll do my best to prevent that, of course, but I can only do so much without proper facilities, plus I'm not even a doctor."

"In any case, I realize you must be tired from the journey, Miss Koito," Mrs Tokime said. "But I'd like to ask you to use your power as soon as possible. It's fine if that's tomorrow morning, however."

"Alright, I got it," Koito said. "I'll take a look first thing in the morning."

"By the way, Mom, did you finish translating her notebook?" Chiharu asked.

"It's only about half done," Ms Hiroe said. "I had to monitor the Mikoshiba so I wasn't able to focus on it… so I'd like to ask you to help me with the rest, Charu."

"Alright!" Chiharu said. "I'll get started on that first thing in the morning, too!"

"Did you get any information from the dancers?" Sunao asked.

"No, nothing," Mrs Tokime said. "But I did think it seemed a little unnatural how quickly they clammed up when touching upon a sensitive subject… almost as though they didn't have a choice."

"So, you are suggesting that these… dancers… are under the influence of magic that forcibly silences them if they try to reveal sensitive information?" Oriko said.

Mrs Tokime nodded. "That's exactly correct… you catch on fast, Miss Mikuni."

"It is what I would have done were I in Miss Mikoshiba's position, after all," Oriko said. "I heard most of the story on the way here."

"I'll get started on dinner," Mrs Tokime said. "After you eat, you can take a bath and go to bed, or you can stay up to talk, however you please. We'll get back on track first thing in the morning."

"Understood!" Chiharu said.

---

The following morning after breakfast, everyone got to work. At Mrs Tokime's recommendation, Koito decided to try her magic on the dancers first, with the intent to probe the Mikoshiba's thoughts last of all. The Hiroe mother and daughter got to work translating the notebook and the stone tablets, while the Tokime mother and daughter started going through all the stuff in the Mikoshiba's house, with help from Sunao. That left Chika to give Komaki, Kirika, and Oriko a tour of the village.

Later in the afternoon, everyone gathered in the central square by the bridge – almost all the magical girls, plus Mrs Tokime and Ms Hiroe. Kirika and Komaki had decided to take a nap instead.

"It's fiiinally done!" Chiharu announced. "It was a lot of work, but we deciphered nearly all of it! There were a few passages that were smudged so we couldn't read them very well, but other than that…"

"And I've scanned everyone's minds," Koito said. "There's… a lot of stuff I learned, and it ain't pretty…"

"Thanks for your hard work, Charu," Shizuka said. "And I cannot thank you enough, Miss Koito, for coming so far from home just to help us with our internal problems."

"Yes, thank you both," Sunao said. "Let's start with Charu's findings."

"I almost thought we wouldn't be able to finish it today," Charu said. "But then somehow we did."

"We also had quite a lot of work to do," Sunao said. "Actually, it's not even finished yet, but it's not as urgent as yours, so we're taking a break."

"Were you dealing with stuff the entire time?" Chiharu asked.

"Yes, there was an unbelievable amount of work," Sunao said. "Some of the villagers were even protesting the Mikoshiba's imprisonment…"

"W-what!?" Chiharu gasped. "Don't they understand what she's done…?"

"Well, I think they actually don't," Sunao said. "I was trying to get them to understand, but it's tough… many of them are old and set in their ways."

"And we had to deal with all of that while sorting through the Mikoshiba's possessions," Shizuka said.

"So, how were things on your end, Charu?" Sunao asked.

"Right!" Chiharu said. "We couldn't dig into every detail, but we can give a pretty good explanation."

"I really did most of the deciphering myself, though," Ms Hiroe said. "But Charu took care of those stone tablets all on her own."

"I swear I'll study more," Chiharu grumbles.

"But why have we come here?" Sunao asked.

"We figured it was a good place to start," Chiharu said. "Since the Tokime clan's roots are connected to this shrine. Or, well… it's also because the Wavering Deity is nearby."

"Why the Wavering Deity?" Shizuka asked.

"You'll understand in a minute," Chiharu said.

"Well then, would you mind starting for us?" Mrs Tokime said. "This cliffhanger is stressing me out."

"Right," Ms Hiroe said. "The story in the notebook was divided into two major chapters. The stone tablets also added some additional context."

"One chapter is about the Mikoshibas," Chiharu said. "The other is about the Tokimes."

"Let's start with what we know of the Mikoshiba clan," Ms Hiroe said. "They were a clan that sent their warriors to protect the Tokime. However, somehow they seized control of the village when all the diviners were away. Then they began to assert their own rules and traditions, creating the diviner's ceremony, the coming-of-age ceremony, and other things. It seems they gained an ability to manipulate devils thanks to a wish they forced on one of the village's girls. Then, they hid the village inside a labyrinth. In short, they manipulated the village into a system that would create diviners to make money for them, and killed the diviners to prevent information from leaking to the outside."

"So, what Mikoshiba did to me…" Shizuka mused.

"Seems to have been tradition for a long time," Chiharu said.

"Then, the part about us becoming devils…?" Shizuka said.

"Looks like that's true too," Chiharu said. "I mean, we've already heard it from multiple sources now, so I think there's no doubt…"

"You can even hear it from Kyuubey himself, if you ask," Oriko said.

"But Lady Akatsuki killed Lord Kyuubey earlier," Shizuka said.

"Ah… there is more than just one Kyuubey," Oriko said. "Killing one of them really make no difference. Normally, if you kill him, he returns immediately to complain about it."

"No way…" Shizuka said. "Well… anyway, what's next!?"

"Right," Chiharu said. "That's the Wavering Deity. It's said to be a devil formed from all the discarded diviners. It just drifts around in circles, neither able to leave, nor to return to its hidden village. Based on what it said on the stone tablet, I think the origin of that witch may be someone named Tokime Oyura, who lived in the same time period as Lady Akatsuki and the original Mikoshiba."

"According to the records in the book, the Mikoshibas believed that the Wavering Deity would return to the village if the Mikoshibas and the devil's labyrinth were gone," Ms Hiroe said. "After swallowing up the village, they believed it would erase all trace of diviners ever having existed. It sounded like an obsession, even… it'll never surrender the Tokimes to anyone else…"

"Wait," Shizuka said. "Then since that devil's labyrinth is already gone…!"

"Yes, the Wavering Deity must be on its way back," Chiharu said. "Assuming the Mikoshiba's theory was correct… so when it arrives, we've got to defeat it."

"So right as our ancestors come back, we'll be opening fire on them," Sunao said with a sigh.

"No we won't," Chiharu said. "We're going to free the Tokime diviners who've been suffering all this time…! Because we've smashed all of the Mikoshiba's rules…!"

"These ancestors will have been growing over so many years, though," Shizuka said. "Can the four of us really defeat them…? I can't ask outsiders to help with something like that… but I know we've got no other choice than to defeat it…"

"I would also prefer not to face that witch," Oriko said. "My powers use a lot of magic, so if it's an extremely powerful one, it could be very dangerous for me."

"I can barely sense it now, though," Shizuka said. "It's definitely coming closer… how much time do we have, I wonder? But now I understand why we set up camp all the way out here. We're going to intercept it here, right?"

"I know this is awful timing," Mrs Tokime said. "But could I ask you to all come back to my house for a moment…?"

"Mother!?" Shizuka exclaimed.

"Remember the sword from before?" Mrs Tokime said. "I'll tell you all about it on the way." She sighed. "This is getting my pulse far higher than it should be at my age!"

As they turned to head towards the Tokime house, Chiharu spoke up again.

"Anyway, that's everything the notebook said," she said. "The tablet said something strange though. It claimed that Kyuubey pushed the Mikoshiba to take over the clan, because the Tokime were doing something that Kyuubey didn't want them to…? It didn't really explain in detail."

"W-what on earth…?" Shizuka said. "You mean that Lord Kyuubey helped the Mikoshiba take over…?"

"Or at least encouraged her too, I guess," Chiharu said.

"We should ask Lady Akatsuki about that next time, then," Shizuka said. "Was there anything else of interest on the stone tablets?"

"The rest of the tablet was a hint about how to revive Lady Akatsuki, which we've already done," Chiharu said. "Oh, there was one other strange thing the tablet mentioned. It said that Tokime Oyura's great-great-grandmother built the island of Shinriku and founded the Tokime clan…"

"When did the Mikoshiba take over…?" Shizuka said. "From what I remember, our clan is said to date back to the Heian period, if not further…"

"That's the thing," Chiharu said. "From what the tablet said, I don't think that's possible… after all, this island has been part of Japan only since the Edo period. I don't know exactly when the Mikoshiba took over, but it couldn't be more than five hundred years ago. Anyway… that's everything from the stone tablets."

Shizuka nodded a little, pondering for a moment before turning to her mother.

"So, Mother, what were you going to tell us?" she asked.

"First, the Hiroe family is undoubtedly descended from the Mikoshibas," Mrs Tokime said.

"Huh… by Mikoshiba, you mean Granny Mikoshiba?" Chiharu said.

"Exactly," Mrs Tokime. "Or at least, they're related to the original Mikoshiba."

"What!?" Chiharu gasped. "Why!?"

"Only people of the Mikoshiba clan can read that script," Mrs Tokime said.

"Mom did tell me that we came from the Tokime village," Chiharu mused.

"But I never expected us to have come from the Mikoshibas," Ms Hiroe said.

"Talk about mixed feelings," Chiharu said.

"Don't say that," Mrs Tokime said. "After all, we Tokimes have been waiting for you."

"We didn't come because of any reason like that though?" Chiharu said.

"Even I wasn't aware of it until recently," Mrs Tokime said. "'When the ones who can read the Mikoshiba's script appear, the Mikoshibas will meet their end. Up until that end arrives, the diviners must forge a single sword.' That's the legend passed down from Tokime to Tokime."

"We ended up deciphering the book after figuring out the village's whole situation," Shizuka mused. "But if we could've read that book in the first place, we certainly would've figured out the entire plan… and once that plan collapsed, we'd have to battle the Wavering Deity…"

"Perhaps Shizuka's and Charu's families were collaborating with each other in the past?" Sunao suggested. "But they were banished after being exposed, and lived outside as the Hiroes…"

"While in my family, they continued sharpening the blade," Shizuka mused.

"And in my family, they kept passing down the Mikoshiba's script," Chiharu said.

They arrived at the house, where Mrs Tokime dug out the sword in question and presented it to Shizuka.

"Shizuka! Accept this!" she said. "This is the treasured sword which the Tokime diviners have infused with their power for generations! Use all the power that's been stored in it over the past centuries, and set the Wavering Deity free!"

"I hereby accept it!" Shizuka proclaimed.

She took the sword from her mother and give it an experimental swing.

"Alright, let's go!" Shizuka said. "Miss Koito, I'm sorry, but we'll hear what you have to say after we return."

"That's fine," Koito said. "I understand that this is more important… it's a very powerful witch, after all. Even I could sense it… it could easily wipe out the whole village, and then it would go down the mountain, and I shudder to think what it would do next… so, good luck!"

"I wish you luck as well," Oriko said.

"Thank you very much," Shizuka said. "But… I suppose this means your oracle is coming true, Miss Mikuni."

"I suppose it does," Oriko says.

The four Tokime girls then left the house and made their way back towards the river.

"This will be our final battle," Sunao said.

"Everyone who infused their emotions into the sword must be wandering as the Wavering Deity," Chiharu said.

"Let's take these bright feelings they once held, and give them all back," Shizuka said.

"After who knows how many centuries!" Chiharu exclaimed.

As they reached the bridge, everyone transformed.

"The Wavering Deity's gotten a lot closer," Chiharu said.

"No, it's still far away," Sunao said.

"Maybe it's getting excited now that it's seen the village?" Chiharu suggested.

They headed across the bridge, making their way around the main shrine building.

"After hundreds of years of wandering, they finally found their hometown," Shizuka said. "Of course, it might just be their devils now, and not really them… but even so, if they've finally found the place where they belong… I imagine they must be overjoyed. But even if they want to return happily, they're no more than harmful devils now. We can't surrender Tokime village to them as their resting place."

They reached the cliff overlooking the lowlands below, and hopped down without even giving it a second thought.

"That's why we have to liberate them with our own hands, right?" Shizuka continued as they fell.

"Yeah, exactly!" Chiharu said. "Their real destination is heaven!"

They landed nimbly at the bottom of the cliff and found a narrow path, perhaps carved by a deer or bear, which they followed towards the witch ahead. Before long they found the portal, bearing the emblem of two feet and a balance scale. Chika gasped.

"T-this emblem… I've fought this witch many times before in Kamihama!"

"Huh?" Shizuka said. "How is that possible…?"

"The familiars… or minions, I think you called them," Chika said. "If they get away and eat some people, they can mature into a copy of the original witch. All the ones I've fought before must have been copies… this is surely the original…"

"Huh… I see," Shizuka said. "Well, there's no point in dallying. Let us defeat it!"

They stepped into the tree-lined paths of the labyrinth, looking around a bit. Before long, the minions appeared – each one a signpost with a brain on top.

"Oookay!" Chiharu said. "I hereby throw the first spear… or rather, the first jitte!"

She flung her weapon at the nearest minion, causing it to screech in protest. A second hit from Chika's thrown hatchet brought the minion down.

"We'll be headed to where your boss is, just like this!" Shizuka proclaimed.

Wielding the ancestral Tokime sword in one hand and her magical zigzag sword in the other, she leapt upon the minions, shredding three in quick succession.

"Keep it up!" Sunao said. "Press on all the way!"

Holding up her orb, she directed her lightning towards those minions that were further away, frying several of them into oblivion. They slowly worked their way forward, wading through the seemingly never-ending flood of minions, but after a few minutes, the flood began to ebb, and soon they'd managed to clear out every single one.

"Hey, Shizuka-chan!" Chiharu said.

"What's up, Charu?" Shizuka asked.

"What are we gonna do next?" Chiharu asked. "Like, after we free the Wavering Deity!"

"It's a little early for that," Sunao retorted.

"I don't know yet," Shizuka said. "But the first thing to do will be to help the village recover. We've got to explain everything that's been going on all this time. Everyone's sure to be shocked, just like with the commotion two days ago."

"Not that!" Chiharu complained.

"Huh!?" Shizuka said.

"I mean what we should do!" Chiharu said. "As diviners!"

"Hmm," Shizuka said. "I wonder about that…? Well, there's no way of knowing until we defeat it. Come on! Focus on our task right now! We're about to enter the core."

"Right," Chiharu said.

---

It's around then that I interrupt the tale.

"Sorry to interrupt," I say. "I realize that this is your big moment and you probably want to show off, but… would you mind skipping to after you defeated the witch? I have a pretty good idea of what happened anyway."

"Ah… yes, alright," Shizuka says.

"It isn't all that interesting anyway," Chika says. "Pretty much a normal witch fight…"

"I don't think you can call it normal when it's that powerful," Sunao says.

"Yeah, it was strong, but it wasn't particularly unusual," Chika says.

"Then let us move on with the story," Shizuka says.

---

Finally, the witch was defeated, and the labyrinth began to collapse. Strangely, just like Oriko predicted, the witch dropped not one but two grief seeds.

"Based on what Miss Mikuni said… we should use one of these and save the other," Shizuka said. "For now, everyone should purify their jewel."

She purified her own soul gem, then passed around the grief seed so everyone else could do the same. Then they located the river and followed it back to the village, where they found everyone waiting in Shizuka's house.

"You've taken care of it, I assume?" Mrs Tokime said.

"Yes!" Shizuka said. "The Wavering Deity has been set free!"

"Then, let's listen to what Miss Koito has to say," Sunao said.

"Yes," Koito said. "You're not going to like it… do you still want to hear?"

"Yes, I'd rather have it out in the open than festering away in a corner," Shizuka said.

"I too want to hear it," Sunao said.

"You've just made me even more curious by saying that!" Chiharu said.

"Alright," Koito said. "Let me think… where should I start? Um… Mrs Tokime, that old woman couldn't have been more than, oh, eighty or ninety years old, right?"

Mrs Tokime nodded. "I believe the current Mikoshiba is in her late seventies," she said. "I wasn't born yet when she took on the role, but some of the seniors in the village remember the ceremony."

"However, she has memories spanning a little over three hundred years," Koito said.

Everyone gasped.

"H-how is that possible…?" Shizuka asked. "She's only in her seventies, and yet… she remembers things that happened before she was born…?"

"Um… it's a little hard to explain," Koito said. "First of all… do any of you know what a vampire is?"

"Are you saying Granny's a vampire…?" Chiharu asked.

"No, that's not it… I only wanted to use it as a point of comparison," Koito said.

"I don't know what that is," Shizuka said.

"You're probably the only one who doesn't know," Sunao said.

They spent a couple of minutes explaining to Shizuka what a vampire is, emphasizing the fact that it's all fictional. Once they were done, Shizuka nodded.

"I see… so it's a creature that can make more of its kind by biting people and sucking their blood," she said. "Such a strange concept…"

"But in some interpretations of vampires, the people bitten by a vampire don't turn into proper vampires," Koito said. "Instead, they turn into something else that's sort of halfway between human and vampire. Sometimes they're called ghouls, or minions, or… well, it's all fictional anyway, so whatever. But… the dancers seem to be similar to that."

"You're saying that the dancers are like minions of a vampire?" Sunao said. "But… wouldn't that make Mikoshiba a vampire after all…?"

"I wouldn't actually call her a vampire," Koito said. "She doesn't suck blood or anything like that. But it does appear that she has some abilities similar to what you'd expect of a vampire. The most important point is that the dancers' lives are linked to hers. If she dies, the dancers will die too. I checked their memories, and they seem to be aware of this. Most of them are scared. Some of them are wishing they hadn't agreed to be a potential successor. They don't really know much about the whole process. I don't think they even know that magical girls turn into witches."

"So the dancers don't know that diviners turn into devils, is that what Miss Koito is saying?" Shizuka asked.

"That's correct," Chika said.

"They did know that the Mikoshiba was able to control the witch of the village," Koito said. "Apparently they would sometimes make use of that witch to teleport by travelling through the shadows. But for the most part… it seems the Mikoshiba hasn't taught them anything about the rituals they would have to one day perform once one of them succeeded as the next Mikoshiba. They only know the absolute basics."

"Isn't that really strange…?" Chiharu said. "They're candidates for the next Mikoshiba… surely they need to know all that stuff?"

"It's not strange in light of the other aspect of the Mikoshiba's power," Koito said. "Remember how I said she has memories of over three hundred years? That's because she can transfer her memories to a new host. That's what actually happens in the succession ceremony – she transfers her memories to the successor, and the previous Mikoshiba dies. The other successor candidates also die at the same time. She needs to make eye contact with the successor to perform the transfer though… that's why she didn't just use that to get free before you imprisoned the dancers."

"I more or less get it," Shizuka said. "But I'm still confused by one thing… how is it possible that the Mikoshiba has such power? We know she's definitely not a diviner…"

"Sorry… diviner was… magical girl, right?" Koito said.

"Yes, that's right," Sunao said.

"The original Mikoshiba was one," Koito said. "Actually, it seemed like she was in a bit of a tragic situation herself. Those oldest memories were a little fuzzy, but from what I could tell, she was a member of a cult that claimed to be descended from Queen Himiko. They had a practice of sacrificing magical girls to the sacred tree in Mizuna."

"Sacred tree…?" Chika said. "I'm pretty sure there's nothing like that in Mizuna ward…"

"It was probably cut down," Koito said. "She had a memory of hearing a rumour to that effect – apparently a famed 'battle shamaness' is said to have destroyed the previous sacred tree. I have no idea if that's true though…"

"Hmm… it could be," Chika mused. "I'm not too familiar with the history of that period, unfortunately… but you said the previous sacred tree? That implies there's another one?"

"Yes, the current sacred tree is a little ways downstream from here, by a waterfall," Koito says.

"Ah, so it's beside the waterfall basin where the bodies of the Tokime diviners sleep…?" Shizuka says.

"Ohhh… that must be the tree the birds were scared of," Chika says.

"Anyway, I said she was a member of that cult, but in fact the Mikoshiba was the daughter of the head priestess," Koito said. "Because of that, she was supposed to turn Kyuubey down when he asked for a wish. However, her mother was apparently murdered by a Buddhist warrior monk, so she ended up making a wish to carry on her family's traditions. And, in order to do that, she decided to take over the Tokime clan. It's also true that Kyuubey encouraged her to do so – there were memories of talking to him about it. He didn't help her though."

"What happened to the monk?" Chiharu asked. "Also, what kind of monk plots to murder someone…? I guess he was an evil monk…?"

"You said she was apparently murdered, so it's not certain?" Chika said

"I don't know what happened to the monk," Koito said. "The Mikoshiba had no memory of that. She didn't witness the deed, either. Strangely, she wasn't particularly interested in getting revenge on him. She just wanted to maintain the traditions of the sacred tree cult. I thought that was a bit unnatural, to tell the truth… almost as if something had tampered with her memories… but I have no way to back up that suspicion."

"Okay, so she's been passing her memories down all this time, like some sort of psychic parasite?" Sunao said.

"That's about right," Koito said. "Apparently, only those two powers were carried along when she passed on her memories. She lost all the other powers she had as a magical girl, such as enhanced strength and reflexes, the ability to transform and summon a magical weapon, and so forth. The current Mikoshiba doesn't have a soul gem… she's certainly not a magical girl. She just carries the soul of an old magical girl… or at least part of the soul. I saw a lot of other things in her memories too; her true nature was the most significant, but if you need to know anything about her contacts with the outside world or anything else, then feel free to ask specific questions."

"I may take you up on that later," Mrs Tokime said.

"But this means the dancers are doomed to die, right?" Shizuka said. "From what you said, they don't really know much, and they're repentant… is there nothing we can do to save them, even if the Mikoshiba dies?"

"I think it may be possible," Oriko spoke up. "You're going to return to Kamihama after this, right, Miss Aoba?"

"Ah, yes," Chika said. "Actually, I was going to invite the others along as well, since there's that meeting about what the Wings of the Magius did… I think you'd be interested."

"What is the Wings of the Magius…?" Shizuka said.

"Um… the short version is, they invented a way to avoid turning into a devil," Chika said. "But in order to perfect the method, they were trying to sacrifice a lot of people, so some other magical girls fought against them. I think the full story will be explained at the meeting."

"Oh!" Shizuka gasped. "There's actually a way to avoid the transformation!? Does it really work…?"

"I'm afraid I haven't seen it for myself," Chika said. "I heard some girls talk about it, so it sounds like it works… but only within the borders of Kamihama. That was one of the problems the Wings of the Magius was trying to solve…"

"In that case, we'd happily accept the invitation," Shizuka said. "Do you two agree as well?"

"Yes, of course," Chiharu said. "If there's a way to avoid turning into a devil, we have to at least check it out!"

"I agree," Sunao said. "Although I'm a little dubious of the claim, but… like Charu said, we can't just ignore it."

"In that case, I would recommend that you take the dancers and the Mikoshiba to the Coordinator's office in Kamihama," Oriko said. "Even if Miss Yakumo cannot help them herself, she may know of someone who can."

"Why the Coordinator…?" Chika asked. "They're not magical girls…"

"And do we really need to take the Mikoshiba too?" Sunao asked.

"Because what was done to them sounds like a type of soul magic," Oriko said. "Which is what Coordinators specialize in… though I don't know if there are any who can work their magic on ordinary humans. Still… if anyone knows how to help them, it would probably be a Coordinator. Furthermore, I believe it would be easier for that person if they could see the Mikoshiba as well. I doubt she needs to be conscious – you could drug her or otherwise incapacitate her, if you wish."

"I see," Shizuka said. "We'll ask the dancers if they want to accompany us to Kamihama, then. If they agree, we'll take them with us."

"Then it sounds like it's settled," Mrs Tokime said. "When is the meeting you mentioned, Miss Chika?"

"Wednesday afternoon," Chika said.

"Then we have a whole day to finish going through the Mikoshiba's things," Mrs Tokime said. "Also… while you were gone, we noticed that the barrier enclosing the village seems to be unstable. There were several cases of people slipping outside and ending up in a ruined version of the village. They all managed to find their way back, fortunately, but… I think we'll probably need to work on migrating everyone over to that ruined version of the village, which also means rebuilding it."

At that moment, there was a knock on the door.

"Just a moment," Mrs Tokime said.

She got to her feet and went to answer it. A moment later, she returned together with Akatsuki Youha, as well as a young black-haired girl who Chika didn't recognize who looked to be around thirteen years old. She was dressed casually in green track pants and a pale yellow tee-shirt.

"Shizuka… this woman says you've met before, is that true?" Mrs Tokime said.

"Oh! Lady Akatsuki!" Shizuka exclaimed. "How did you find your way here…?"

"I'm affiliated with the Tokime clan, so of course I'd know the way to the hidden village," Youha said. "I came by because I had a feeling you would appreciate a little help. The village's barrier has become unstable, hasn't it? If nothing is done, it'll collapse within a month or two… I can show you where to find the artifact that generates it, and how to operate it."

"Huh? The barrier is generated by an artifact?" Shizuka said.

"Yes – it's one of the legacies of our founder, Lady Sakuya," Youha said. "When she was experimenting with enchantments in her later years, she created a number of artifacts, including that one, as well as the one currently being used in Mitakihara to keep witches at bay. Lady Sakuya was said to be able to generate a barrier by her own power, so the artifact is effectively replicating that power of hers."

"I see," Shizuka said.

At that point, the unknown girl tugged at Youha's sleeve.

"Ah, right," Youha said. "In addition to all that, my companion here had some business with the old Mikoshiba, so I brought her along. I hope you don't mind."

"If you think she can be trusted, then I'll trust your judgement, Lady Akatsuki," Shizuka says.

"We were actually talking about the barrier just before you arrived," Mrs Tokime said. "But… how did you know it was unstable?"

"I have magic that can sense truth," Youha said. "It's hard to explain, but… thanks to that magic, combined with my own theorizing, I realized the situation the village was in. I was actually considering taking down Yura's witch myself, but it looks like you beat me to it. Perhaps that's for the better – without Lady Sakuya's sword, even I may have had trouble against it."

"It was a tough battle, but we managed to defeat it with the help of the sword of the ancestor," Shizuka said.

"You have Lady Sakuya's sword in your possession, then?" Youha said.

Shizuka summoned it to her hand as proof, and Youha nodded.

"That is indeed the same sword that we used to carry the hope of the Tokime diviners to the future," she said. "Though it looks like much of the power vested in it has now dissipated."

Shizuka nodded, vanishing the sword again. "Yes, it seems it was stored up, but not fixed in place," she said. "I used most of that stored power against the Wavering Deity. There is still a little left, however. I'm not sure whether I'll have need of the sword again, but I've decided to hold on to it even so."

"I'm sure Lady Sakuya would be happy to know that her sword is still being used," Youha said.

"Anyway, you were talking about the barrier earlier," Shizuka said. "Do you know how to fix it? We were planning to migrate everyone out of it, but… it would be a great help if we didn't have to…"

Youha nodded. "Yes, I'll help you out," she said. "We'll need to exit the barrier and dig in the ruins of the original village."

"And… just who is your companion?" Chika asked. "Even if Shizuka-chan trusts Miss Akatsuki's judgement, I'm not so sure…" Turning to the girl in question, she asked. "Could you introduce yourself and explain your purpose in coming here?"

"Chika-chan…!" Chiharu gasped.

The unknown girl shook her head.

"It's okay, Miss… Hiroe, was it?" she said. "I'm sorry, but I think it's better not to give my name. Even so, is it okay if I have a talk with the Mikoshiba? I have some old business to settle with her."

"Can I really trust that you're not secretly her ally…?" Chika asked.

"That woman and her ilk have trampled on my own reputation for a very long time," the girl snorted. "Me, her ally? Fat chance!"

"Well… your dislike for her does seem genuine," Chika admitted.

"So, may I speak with her briefly?" the girl repeated.

"I don't see why not," Mrs Tokime said. "But, you girls should accompany her, just to be on the safe side."

She gestured to Shizuka and the others, then turned back to the unknown girl.

"By the way… are you a diviner yourself?" she asked. "You don't appear to be wearing a ring…"

"Ah… yes, I am," the girl said, nodding. "I've gotten into the habit of keeping my ring hidden, as it draws attention from… certain unsavoury kinds of people, but… there should be no issue with letting you guys know. Besides, some of you probably sensed it already."

"Alright, let's go have a chat with Granny, then," Chiharu said.

"I'll come too," Koito said. "I'm a little interested, and I could also detect if she's lying."

Chiharu got to her feet, followed by Shizuka, Sunao, and Chika. The four of them led the unknown girl outside to the Mikoshiba's house. Koito and Komaki also followed them. They headed for one of the bedrooms, where the Mikoshiba lay on the bed, still bound hand and foot. As they entered the room, Koito transformed.

Sunao helped the Mikoshiba to sit up, receiving only glares in exchange. There appeared to be some cotton wadding stuffed into one side of her mouth, presumably as part of Ms Hiroe's treatment for the bitten tongue. Then the unknown girl stepped out from where she'd been lurking behind Chika, and the Mikoshiba's eyes widened in recognition.

"Y-you!?" she gasped, her words a little slurred from the wadding. "How… how can you be here…?"

The girl smiled.

"I wasn't quite sure, but that clinches it," she said. "You're still Mikoshiba Kiku, aren't you? Not her descendant, or her successor, or anything like that, but Mikoshiba Kiku herself. The vessel may have changed, but the soul is the same."

"Fool!" the Mikoshiba retorted. "Why should I answer your questions? Have you come to kill me again?"

"Well, I would've done so if I'd found you just a little bit earlier," the girl said. "As it happened, for a long time I thought you had turned into a witch. After all… if you correct for the corruption harmonics, the witch that was hiding here in the village until recently had a very similar magical signature to yours… care to explain that?"

"I have no obligation to explain anything to a girl who tries to kill me without even giving her name," the Mikoshiba retorted.

"Given that you're Mikoshiba Kiku in mind but not in body, I'd have to say I probably hit the nail on the head," the girl said. "And I guess that witch also sheltered you from my power… it's no wonder I was unable to find you after we last separated. I have to hand it to you – using your own witch as a barrier and weapon is something I never would've thought of. No, I wouldn't even be capable of it. Most magical girls wouldn't be."

"Her thoughts seem to indicate that your theories are all correct," Koito spoke up. "But I'm surprised too… that she could even maintain her consciousness after she turned into a witch, that's kind of surprising…"

"Well, I'd guess it's more like she passed on her consciousness just before turning," the girl said. "That doesn't make it any less surprising, though… anyway, it looks like you're finally about to answer for your many crimes, Mikoshiba Kiku, so I don't think there's any need for me to kill you anymore. I can tell you don't feel any remorse for all that you've done, but at least I can finally rest easy, knowing that the corruption of my legacy has been completely rooted out at long last."

"Every new thing I learn about the Mikoshiba makes me loathe her more and more," Sunao marvelled. "I can hardly believe she could be such an awful, evil person… I never thought people like that actually existed in the real world…"

"By the way, you wanted to know who I am, right, Mikoshiba Kiku?" the unknown girl said.

"I'll admit, I am still very curious as to your true identity," the Mikoshiba said.

"Are you aware yourself, who it was who originally preached the worship of a sacred tree?" the unknown girl asked.

"Naturally, that would be Queen Iyo," the Mikoshiba said. "Our ancestors passed down the rituals from her reign, with the Way of Arcanum at its core."

"Well, then I guess I'm an ancestor of yours," the girl said. "Assuming your clan's records are accurate, of course. I haven't taken the time to verify the connection myself. But that does mean I can confirm that what you passed down strayed very, very far from the original teachings – the sacred tree was originally intended only as an allegory for respecting the environment, yet somehow it became a ritual to turn magical girls into witches? How that happened, I can't even begin to guess…"

"Huh?" Chiharu said. "Aren't you even younger than I am…? But now you're saying you're Granny's ancestor?"

The girl shrugged. "You can't judge a magical girl's age from her appearance, you know," she said. "Anyway, I'd like to thank you guys for giving me a chance to talk to this remnant of the sacred tree cult, but would it be okay if I take my leave for now? I do have other things I need to do, after all. Like meeting up with Scheherazade."

"Ah, yes," Shizuka said. "Thank you for coming… we learned a little bit more about the Mikoshiba thanks to you."

"The pleasure's all mine," the girl said. "And we'll meet again someday, of that I am certain. So, see you later."

"See you," Chiharu said.

Sunao and Shizuka echoed the statement, and then the girl glowed brightly and was gone.

"Huh… did she just… teleport!?" Shizuka gasped.

"Looks like it," Chika said.

As they headed back outside, Komaki spoke up.

"Hey, Koito, did you get a peek in that chick's head?" she asked.

"Ah, that girl?" Koito said. "I caught a glimpse or two, but she must've been very experienced, because she was blocking my magic somehow. I didn't see anything that she didn't say out loud."

When they arrived back, they found everyone else waiting out in front of the house, Kirika boredly leaning on a tree and tapping her foot impatiently.

"I believe you should hurry," Oriko says. "The house shook just a moment ago."

"You've finished your chat with the Mikoshiba, I take it?" Youha said. "Let's exit the barrier… are you aware how to do that?"

"No… I never even realized I was living in a barrier until recently," Shizuka says. "Even now I'm not quite sure where the boundary between the barrier and the outside world lies…"

"I could explain it, but I don't believe we have the time," Youha said. "Very well… just follow me."

"Come on, there's no time to lose," Mrs Tokime said.

Youha turned and led the group through the village, following a seemingly random path until they reached a spot that didn't quite match up with its surroundings, like a patch of sky that wasn't quite the right colour. She walked right into it and vanished. The others followed her example, and found themselves in the ruins of the old village.

"Oh my, it truly is in ruins as you said," Oriko said.

"It's been neglected ever since we decided to conceal the village, after all," Youha said. "Just a moment… let me get my bearings."

She looked around, taking in the preserved foundations, then turned and strode purposefully down one of the old streets, taking a turn and walking a bit further, then stopping roughly at the centre of the complex.

"Here," she said. "The physical part of the time capsule should be buried right here. I don't suppose anyone here happens to have earth magic, though…?"

The girls looked at each other, but it was clear the answer was no. But after a moment, Chika stepped forward.

"I have a suggestion," she said. "There are wild boar in these mountains. I think they'd be happy to dig this up for us in exchange for some food."

"That sounds good," Youha said.

"In that case, I'll head back to get some food," Mrs Tokime said. "Will you come too, Ms Hiroe?"

"Of course," Ms Hiroe said.

"I will accompany you as well," Oriko said.

The rest of her team ended up joining her as well, leaving the Tokime girls alone with Youha. Chika opened her mouth and produced a variety of birdsong, luring in birds and seemingly communicating with them. Meanwhile, Shizuka had a question for Youha.

"Lady Youha, may I ask you something?" she said. "You mentioned that your magic can sense truth, so can you tell me honestly that the Tokime have always wished for the sake of Nippon?"

Youha blinked at her. "For the sake of Japan, you say? I think the kind of sentiment you have in mind has been common in the Tokime clan, but I don't think it was ever really for the sake of Japan specifically. In my time, we of Shinriku had fled from the war on the mainland and thus considered ourselves to be an independent state, so our wishes were made for the sake of Shinriku. It was only after the Mikoshiba neutralized the Tokime clan that the emperor was able to seize control of this land."

Seeing Shizuka's incredulous expression, she sighed.

"I think it's true that many of the Tokime after the Mikoshiba takeover wished for the sake of Japan," Youha said. "For my part, I don't think it much matters whether it is Japan as a whole, or Shinriku specifically. Above all else, the Tokime wished for freedom from oppression and tragedy, which is a goal that can be achieved just as well within the framework of Japan as in an independent Shinriku, and they made their wishes for the sake of their homeland with those thoughts in mind."

"I… I see," Shizuka said. "That was… very much not the kind of response I expected, but… freedom from oppression and tragedy is indeed a noble goal. It seems to me that we can still restore the will of our ancestors."

Youha shook her head. "No, you can restore the will of our ancestors," she said. "I have had quite enough of politics for one life, so I don't plan to take part in such things from now on if I can possibly avoid it. I'll leave the Tokime clan in the hands of you youngsters from now on."

"Does that mean you're leaving?" Sunao asked.

"Yes," Youha said. "Not right away – I'll hang around the island for maybe a year or so, in case you have any further questions. And even after I'm gone, I'll still pop back from time to time… but ultimately, what I wish to do now is travel around the world and see things that I never could have seen in my first life."

"Say, I was wondering something too," Chiharu spoke up. "Your surname isn't Tokime, but rather Akatsuki… is the Akatsuki a branch of the Tokime? Or is it descended from the Mikoshiba?"

"Technically, neither," Youha said. "The Akatsuki and Tokime clans were intermingled from the start. When the island was founded, there were a brother and sister of the Asano clan, and a brother and sister of the Tokime, as well as the mothers of both pairs of siblings. Those pairs of siblings intermarried, and those bearing the Tokime name descend from Lady Sakuya and the young lord of the Asano, while those of the Akatsuki name descend from Lady Aiko of the Asano clan and the young lord of the Tokime. Lady Sakuya's mother also remarried and had several more children, who became the Kosho clan."

"So you're basically saying that the Asano clan renamed themselves to Akatsuki," Chiharu said.

"And if the Akatsuki and Kosho are included in the Tokime clan, the common root of the clan is not the founder but instead the founder's mother," Sunao said.

"That is a valid way of looking at it," Youha said. "Though in practice, the Kosho were treated as a branch of the Tokime, while the Akatsuki were treated as a separate clan."

"Alright," Chika spoke up suddenly. "The wild boar family are on their way over, so now we just have to wait."

---

There are a few strange and interesting revelations mixed in there. The true nature of the Mikoshiba is particularly interesting. I'd always thought that it was strange how the dancers all died suddenly, and had even come up with a few possible theories of my own, but this explains it quite neatly.

"Are the dancers still at the Coordinator's place?" I ask.

"Ah, we haven't even taken them there yet," Sunao says. "We were going to go after the meeting. They're currently waiting for us at Suitoku Temple."

"I see… I was just thinking, I might know someone who's even more likely to know something than Miss Yakumo," I say. "Though it's pure speculation based on one thing she said, but… mind if I send her an email?"

"Oh, if you think she can help, then sure," Chiharu says. "The worst that can happen is she says no, right?"

"Okay, I'll ask her," I say.

I take out my phone, intending to compose a message to Hanekawa Tsubasa, but it turns out we never exchanged contact info, so I address it to Hachikuji Mayoi instead.

[Hello Maimai. I wanted to contact Miss Hanekawa but I didn't have her email, so could you pass this on? I've come across some people who apparently have magic on them that will cause them to die if the caster dies. The caster is elderly and already attempted to commit suicide, so their lives are in immediate danger. I think it might be some kind of soul magic, so I wondered if Miss Hanekawa might have some idea of whether there's a way to save them. We're planning to ask the Coordinator in Kamihama as well, so if she's interested and willing to check them out, you can meet us there.]

I re-read the message twice, then send it.

"Now then… if we've finished talking, there's something I'd like to show you," I say. "And we can also try what Miss Mikuni suggested at the same time – you have the grief seeds from the Wavering Deity, right?"

"Ah, yes, I have both of them with me," Shizuka says.

She takes them out, one fresh and unused, the other almost spent. Inui fiddles with her phone for a moment before speaking up.

"Elly-tan and the others are still in town, by the way," she says. "I asked her to stop by on her way out."

That was her nickname for Elise.

"…did you develop mind-reading powers…?" I ask. "Naturally, I can't imagine any other reason why Miss Mikuni would suggest leaving one of the grief seeds unused."

"I don't need mind-reading powers to know what you're thinking in a case like this," Inui retorts. "They'll be here in about ten minutes."

"Okay, so what about Miss Hozumi?" I say. "I saw her come in earlier, but I don't see her around right now… is she in her room…?"

I try contacting her telepathically.

«Miss Hozumi, are you around?»

She responds immediately, so I guess she's nearby.

«What do you want?»

«Do you remember where you took Yuma when she wanted to make a contract?»

«Of course.»

«Would you mind taking me there now?»

«As long as you pay.»

«Of course, just name your price. Is cash okay this time? I'm a bit low on grief seeds right now.»

She cites a price, and I take out my wallet to extract the amount. Shizuku herself emerges into the seating area a few moments later.

"Is it just you?" she asks.

"I'd like everyone here to come," I say.

"Alright," Shizuku says. "Follow me."

"Inui, would you mind waiting here for Elise?" I ask.

"Sure," Inui says.

The Tokime quartet and I stand up and follow Shizuku into the back room. She leads us to her bedroom, takes my money, and opens a portal to the remote mountain shrine I remember seeing in my vision before. Shizuku takes a seat on her bed to wait, while I step through the portal. The Tokime quartet follow me, looking around with interest.

"It's a tiny remote shrine," Shizuka says. "And it has a similar design to the one in the village… is it related to the Tokime clan?"

"Maybe," I say. "But before we get to the main event… I believe this is far enough away from any human settlement, so it's not a bad place to unleash a witch."

The appearance of the witch might even help to attract the attention of the person I wanted to meet out here. That is, assuming she's even out here in the first place.

"Huh? Why would you want to do that…?" Sunao gasps.

"To be honest, I'm not sure myself," I say. "It was Miss Oriko who suggested it, remember? So I think we should just give it a try. Could I have that grief seed you showed me a moment ago? The one that's almost spent."

"Here it is," Shizuka says, taking both of the grief seeds out. "But I'm afraid I still don't understand… why would you want to 'unleash a witch'? You mentioned before that the witch would respawn if this soul is not disposed of, but what is the point in doing that? I really don't understand what Miss Mikuni was thinking…"

"I don't understand either," I say. "I wouldn't normally have any reason to intentionally respawn a witch like this. I can only guess that maybe there's something unusual about this grief seed… so let's try it out and see what happens."

"I don't like it, but… I have to admit I'm a little curious about Miss Mikuni's oracle as well," Shizuka says. "And we can just kill the witch again, right? So let's do it."

She hands me the nearly-spent grief seed, and I convert my soul to gem form and press the grief seed up against it. It doesn't seem to be quite enough to make it hatch, however.

"Here, all of you purify yours too," I say, holding it out.

They each follow my example, converting their souls to gem form and pressing them against the grief seed. After a moment, it pulses, then glows, expanding and spawning a labyrinth that sucks us all in. However… Oriko was right. There's something different about this grief seed. As it expands, a brightly glowing scrap of light seems to escape from it.

"Wait… the other one is glowing too!?" Shizuka gasps. "Is that normal…?"

"No, I'm pretty sure it's not," I say. "I've never seen this glowing speck of light pop out when a witch respawns…"

The glowing light is joined by a second globule of light that emerges from the untouched grief seed, as well as countless streamers of light reaching out to infinity, so fine that they're barely visible. Once the incoming streamers die off, the ball of light coalesces into… a soul gem.

"Isn't that… a soul jewel…?" Shizuka says. "But whose is it…?"

"I honestly have no idea," I say. "I'm as surprised as you are by this… the way the grief seed expanded and spawned a labyrinth is normal, but this light and the appearance of a soul gem is distinctly unusual."

As I speak, the soul gem generates a body, much like how Youha's body was reconstituted when she made a wish. She's a woman of European ethnicity, perhaps German, with long wavy reddish-gold hair and plenty of freckles on her face. She wears a purple coif that covers the back of her head, fixed at the crown by a pink sphere that could possibly be her soul gem. She wears a white dress with lace-like embroidered patterns only at the front, with the remainder being dark purple with accents of light purple. In fact, it's probably two pieces, the white portion worn underneath a purple open-fronted garment. The white part is full of frills and falls to just above the knee, while the purple part has almost no frills except at the hems on the sleeve and skirt, which match the material of the white part. The skirt of the purple part bulges out into a bell shape, and the sleeves flare out from the elbow to about three times the minimum width. Two more pink spheres can be seen at her chest and navel – it's not clear which of the three is her soul gem. She wears light grey knee-high boots with a cloth flourish at the hem matching the white material. As she lands on the ground and opens her eyes, I see that they are a deep purple matching her outfit.

"My oh my," the woman says, her Japanese somehow perfectly fluent. "I feel like I've been asleep for quite awhile…"

She yawns a little and looks around at her audience.

"Could one of you pray tell me what the current year is according to the calendar of Pope Gregory?" she asks.

"Huh…?" Shizuka says. "You don't know?"

"Is there a reason why I should know?" the woman asks.

"Um, it's 2050," Chiharu speaks up.

"Oh my goodness…!" the woman gasps. "I never thought it would be that long… around five centuries, I think? Damn, I must have missed millions of exciting pieces of history…"

"Excuse me," Shizuka says. "But would you mind introducing yourself…?"

"Ah, my apologies," the woman says. "You probably won't be able to remember this for long, but I am Clarisse van Rossum. Like my friend Scheherazade, I am a witness to history, who records notable events as they occur. As one who only records, it's difficult for me to directly impact history, and as a result, my existence rapidly fades from the memory of ordinary people. You are magical girls, so you may be able to remember me for longer than most, but there are few who can entirely resist the effect."

"It's nice to meet you, Miss, um, Clarisse…?" Shizuka says. "I am Tokime Shizuka."

"Tokime, huh?" Clarisse says. "You must be related to dear Sakuya, then. I only met her briefly, but she was a good woman. Was it her witch that swallowed me up when I turned, I wonder? No, that doesn't seem right… I feel like I wandered for awhile as a witch, unchallenged, before eventually being devoured by the one currently sleeping before us. But I believe she was the last person I spoke with before turning…"

"You… you were a witch…?" Sunao asks. "And you can even turn back after becoming a witch…?"

"Well, it's sort of like my unique power," Clarisse says. "Or one of them. I'm afraid I have no idea how to help anyone else with that. In any case, allow me to thank you for reviving me. I'm sure Scheherazade has been searching for me as well, so I'll thank you on her behalf too."

"So… you know Miss Scheherazade?" Chika says.

"As she is one of the few who can consistently remember me, we became friends," Clarisse says. "Have you met her too?"

"Briefly… she showed up a few days ago when we were fighting Walpurgisnacht and helped out a little," Chika says.

"That's odd," Clarisse says. "She's not usually the type to help people out like that… well, whatever. Did you win?"

"Ah, yes, we did," Chika says. "And without anyone dying, even."

"Oh, impressive," Clarisse says. "So we're in an era with no wandering catastrophe-class witch… not bad, not bad, though I wish I could've seen it for myself. Well, if you'll excuse me, I need to get caught up on the modern world—"

"Um, can't we help you with that…?" Chiharu suggests.

"Hmm… I suppose you could," Clarisse says. "I'll remember your offer. If I have a question that I can't resolve on my own, I'll come by and ask you, is that okay?"

"Ah, um… yes…?" Chiharu says hesitantly.

"Well then… perhaps we'll meet again," Clarisse says.

She summons a book similar to Scheherazade's, flipping through it until she reaches a page that appears to depict Pernelle. Then she raises the book above her head, and the magical diagrams of Pernelle's teleportation magic appear, spiriting her away.

"That was really strange," Chika says. "To think there's a magical girl like that around…"

"Wait a second… we're in the middle of a labyrinth!?" Chiharu gasps. "But wait… isn't this the main chamber? But I don't see the witch…"

"When a witch respawns like this, sometimes it takes some time for it to wake up," I say. "I'm not sure how long it'll take… we could wait, or we could try leaving and coming back a bit later."

"I think we should wait," Shizuka says firmly. "If we leave, the witch could get away."

"Fair enough," I say. "We'll wait."

A couple of minutes later, I hear Inui's voice in my head.

«Ashley, what's going on? Are you fighting this witch? It seems oddly quiet though…»

«I'm not fighting it,» I say. «It's newly-spawned, so I'm just waiting for it to wake up so I can kill it. Can you find your way to the middle on your own?»

«What do you take me for?» Inui retorts. «I've fought this witch several times, so I know how it works… and there aren't any familiars around this time, so it should be easy. By the way, Elly-tan is with me, but the others are waiting back at the café.»

«Alright, got it,» I say. «By the way… why were they still in Kamihama, anyway? I thought they were going to karaoke.»

«Iro-iro invited Mado-tan and the Holy Brigade to lunch,» Inui says. «Elly-tan and the others decided to go too, since they'd planned to all go to karaoke together anyway.»

"Should we try laying a trap for the witch?" Chiharu suggests.

"I don't think it would work," I say. "For one thing, the witch controls the terrain here, so she could easily destroy your trap, and for another, using that much magic would probably trigger her to wake up faster anyway."

"Isn't it a good thing if she wakes up faster?" Sunao says.

"It's not a bad thing," I admit. "But we might as well wait for Inui to join us, at least. The more fighters the better, right? She's already in the labyrinth so it shouldn't be long."

"I see," Shizuka says. "So, once your friend arrives, we could intentionally wake the witch, is that what you're saying?"

"We probably could," I say. "I'm not completely sure how this works, but… probably."

Several minutes later, Inui and Elise burst into the central chamber. Neither of them are transformed.

"We're here!" Inui announces.

"Alright, I think the witch is likely to wake up faster if we transform," I say. "So let's start with that."

At my suggestion, everyone transforms. Sure enough, that elicits a reaction from the witch. Soon we're facing down a fully-matured Lucy. Fortunately, it's nowhere near as powerful as the Wavering Deity, so our party makes short work of it. Shizuka captures the new grief seed as the barrier collapses.

"Could you let Elise-chan have the grief seed?" I ask. "Both the one we just obtained and the other one from the same witch."

"Ah, sure," Shizuka says.

She hands over both of Lucy's grief seeds.

"Is that the one you want me to restore?" Elise asks.

"That's right," I say. "You can use one of them as the fuel to restore the other, right?"

"That should be fine," Elise says. "At least in principle… it feels strange when they're both the same…"

She takes out another grief seed and presses it and one of Lucy's grief seeds against her soul gem, and holds Lucy's other grief seed in her hand. As the second seed transforms back into a soul gem, her soul gem slowly fills up, but most of the grief transfers immediately over to the other grief seeds. When it's over, her soul gem is still about half full, and both of the seeds pressed against it are spent.

"Um… something's weird," Elise says. "It didn't feel off, but… doesn't this soul gem look a little strange?"

We look at the restored soul gem. She has a point. Normally, a soul gem is a single pure colour, but this one is a patchwork of brilliant shades. It reminds me a little of the state of Homura's soul gem at the end of the movie, just before evolving, but unlike then, each of the colours has a brilliant gleam.

"W-whoa…!" Chiharu gasps. "The devil's soul turned into a jewel…! But… whose is it…?"

"Didn't that woman earlier just say that this is impossible?" Sunao asks.

"She said she couldn't do it herself," I say. "That doesn't mean it's impossible. It's not as useful as it seems though, because it doesn't restore the body… so there's no real point in doing it unless you can find the body somewhere else. However, based on what Miss Akatsuki said, I suspect there's a chance that her body is somewhere nearby."

"It does look odd for a soul gem, though," Chika says. "I've never seen a soul gem that looks like this…"

"Same here," I say. "I'm not sure why it would look like that either…"

"Well, I'll leave it to you to figure it out," Elise says. "I'm going back."

She hands me the soul gem and heads back through the portal.

"Right," I say. "Enough of the distractions… let's get on to what I actually came here to show you."

"You mean the shrine, right?" Shizuka says. "As I mentioned earlier, it looks similar to the one in the village…"

She steps forward to take a closer look at it, but the shrine wasn't quite what I was after. I look around, scanning for magical auras in the area other than us. Finally, I find one and turn to face it. There's a rustling sound, and a fox suddenly emerges from the woods. The fox trots up to me, gazes up at me for a moment, then heads over to repeat the process on everyone else.

"Oh!" Chiharu says. "Look, there's a fox!"

"Huh?" Chika says. "It seems pretty comfortable around humans…? I guess people don't come here often so it doesn't know that humans are scary…?"

"No… I don't think that's it," I say. "Did no-one else notice…?"

"Notice what…?" Sunao says.

"The fox has a magical aura," I say.

Sunao blinks. "Huh? She's right…! It's so faint that I didn't notice at first, but… it's similar to a magical girl…"

"Why would a fox have a magical girl aura…?" Chiharu says.

I turn to face the fox. "I think she is a magical girl," I say. "Excuse me, but… if I'm right, would you mind taking human form for us?"

The fox looks at me, tilting its head for a moment, then nods. Her form blurs as she transforms, taking on the shape of a young woman who appears to be perhaps sixteen or seventeen, with jet black hair so long that it trails on the ground. She's still not fully human, retaining the tail of a fox emerging from that curtain of hair and fox-like ears perched upon her head. Her hair covers the side of her head, so I can't tell if she also has regular human ears. Though she's not wearing any clothes, there's so much hair that most of her body is covered anyway. She reaches up to push the hair away from her face, revealing striking violet eyes.

"Why?" she asks.

"T-the fox suddenly turned into a girl…!" Chiharu gasps.

"Are you Kuzunoha?" I ask.

The girl tilts her head slightly, then nods. Shizuka gasps, staring at the girl in surprise.

"You… know of… me…?" she asks, her speech slurred and full of awkward pauses.

"Do you mean… that Kuzunoha?" Inui asks. "The mother of Abe no Seimei?"

"Yes, though… my first daughter… gone so long… forgot her face…" Kuzunoha says.

"Huh…?" Inui gasps. "Wait, are you telling me Seimei was a woman!? That's the shocking revelation of the year!"

"I've heard the name Kuzunoha as well, from Mother and Granny," Shizuka says. "Ah, I mean my actual grandmother, not the Mikoshiba. It's said that Kuzunoha is something like a guardian spirit for the Tokime… but she was actually just a diviner?"

Kuzunoha tilts her head. "Diviner… what's… that?"

"It's another word for magical girl," I say.

"Oh… then, yes," Kuzunoha says. "Not… guardian spirit, just… ancient lost child… who lives… on, only… because it's easier… than dying…"

"Guardian spirit or not, it's a fact that you're related to the Tokime, is it not?" Shizuka says.

"Related…?" Kuzunoha says. "Not by blood… but… it was Sakuya… who brought me… to this island. So… she was… a friend… but… after she… was a witch… I came… out here… and since then… I haven't… met any other… Tokime… other than… that one… sleeping in the shrine…"

"So you're saying you were a friend of the founder," Shizuka says.

"Yes… that's… right," Kuzunoha says. "I miss… Sakuya… very much… almost as much as… Seimei…"

"Um… what was that about someone sleeping in the shrine?" I ask.

"Ah," Kuzunoha says. "Youha… brought her… she's soulless… but… I encased her… in my magic…"

"Youha… I can't imagine there are two people with that name," I muse. "Could that woman possibly be Tokime Oyura…?"

"Probably…?" Kuzunoha says hesitantly. "Her name… don't remember… definitely a Tokime…"

"If that's the case… maybe this soul gem we just restored can wake her," I say. "Do you mind if we try?"

"Oh… I suppose," Kuzunoha says. "Follow me…"

She turns and leads us inside the shrine. It kind of looks like she's been using the interior as a place to store things – I can see at least two kimonos hanging on one wall, and there's a katana on the opposite wall. I've never been inside the sanctuary of a Shinto shrine, so I'm not really sure what's normal, but the others also seem surprised by what they see, so I assume this isn't considered normal. The mentioned woman is laying on a futon in one corner. She has long black hair and is dressed in a flowery kimono, her hands folded neatly on her chest. However, she's clearly not breathing. I place the soul gem down next to her hands and take a step back to wait.

"So, um… Kuzunoha, was it?" Chiharu says. "Just how old are you…?"

Kuzunoha shrugs. "Unknown," she says. "I haven't… tracked my age… since Seimei… died…"

"According to the historical record, Abe no Seimei was born in 921 AD," Inui says. "So that's at least, um… how much…?"

"That's about eleven hundred years ago," Chika says.

"Do you remember how old you were when Lady Seimei was born?" Shizuka asks.

"No," Kuzunoha says. "Back then… I knew… but now I've… forgotten…"

"What about how old you were when you contracted?" Chiharu suggests.

"That… clearly remember… I was… twelve," Kuzunoha says. "My village… was on fire… Lord Fuji was… vomiting ash and flame… I thought… I would die, so… when Kyuubey appeared… I made a wish… to survive."

Inui blinks. "So Mount Fuji erupted when you were twelve!" she says. "That's a very good reference point. If we're talking about Fuji eruptions before 921 AD… the closest would be… yes, the eruptions in 864 and 865 AD, or Jougan 6 in the old calendar. The emperor would've been Seiwa, if I recall correctly."

"Then the latest possible year of birth for her would be 853 AD," Chika says. "Making her about twelve hundred years old."

"There's an easy way to confirm whether it was that eruption, too," Inui says. "Kuzunoha, do you remember if there was a big lake that was split up into several smaller lakes during the eruption?"

Kuzunoha tilts her head, considering.

"That… yes, I think… that might… have happened," she says. "The emperor's name… also sounds… familiar…"

"Twelve hundred years," Shizuka says. "That's truly incredible… is it only because you wished to survive, or is it common for diviners to live for such a long time? That other woman, Miss… Clarisse, was it? And also, the girl who wanted to speak with the Mikoshiba… they both seemed to be quite old as well… not to mention Lady Youha… though her case is quite unique…"

"It doesn't seem to be common," I say. "But there are quite a few of them around the world. There's one other who has a connection with your clan, too – the alchemist, Pernelle Flamel. She's currently living in Asunaro, on the northeast coast of the island."

"I have heard of Lady Pernelle," Shizuka says. "Mother told me that she forged the sword of the founder that I used to bring an end to the Wavering Deity… but I never imagined that she could still be alive… I would dearly love to meet her as well."

"I think she probably wouldn't like being addressed as a lady though," I say. "And I'm sure she's very different from what you imagine."

"Um… excuse me, Lady Kuzunoha?" Shizuka says.

"Yes…?" Kuzunoha says.

"I was just wondering… is there any reason why you've been living out here on this mountain?" Shizuka asks. "Would you like to come back to the village with us?"

Kuzunoha shrugs. "There was… a reason once… it… no longer applies… but I… had no reason… to leave… so… I didn't…"

"Then… will you come with us?"

"I will… come," Kuzunoha says. "I may… not stay… but…"

"Ah… that's fine," Shizuka says. "If you decide you don't like the village, then I wouldn't dream of making you stay there!"

"In that case, should we help you put one of those on?" Chiharu asks, indicating the kimonos hanging on the wall.

"No… I think… I can do it… myself," Kuzunoha says. "However… before that… my hair… tangles…"

"Oh, I can lend you a hairbrush," Sunao says. "Though with the amount of hair you have, it might be a bit tough even with a hairbrush…"

"No… worries," Kuzunoha says.

She summons an old tsurugi sword with a leaf design on the hand guard and seizes the hair falling across her chest, cutting it off around the level of her navel. Then she banishes the sword, gathers the hair that had been covering her chest around to her back, and summons the sword again, this time cutting the hair off at neck level. The action reveals that she does in fact have normal human ears in addition to the fox ears atop her head. Then she banishes the sword once more and turns to take down one of the kimonos, which she starts to put on.

"Are you able to get rid of the fox ears and tail?" I ask. "I'm not sure, but I think they'd draw a lot of attention, at least in the city… it wouldn't be an issue in the village, I assume."

"I… can," Kuzunoha says. "It's… not hard, I… just don't… feel comfortable… without them…"

True to her word, she's able to don the kimono without help, and then she borrows Sunao's hairbrush to drag it through what's left of her hair. It's while she's brushing that the woman in the corner suddenly sits up.

"Huh?" she says. "Who… what… where… why!?"

She suddenly clutches at her head and screams.

"A-are you okay, miss!?" Shizuka gasps.

"I… I'm not— Who are— Where am— No— Stop, it hu—"

She keeps cutting herself off. It reminds me of the time when we revived Chihiro Karen with two soul gems, but much worse. Looking more closely at her fingernails, I notice something else strange – I can't see a symbol there, exactly, but every one of her fingernails is coloured in seemingly random patterns. There's only one soul gem ring, however.

"Um… please calm down, miss," I say. "Could you give me your name?"

The woman looks at me

"Tokime Moriko," she says. "H-huh, who? I'm Yukuni Noa… no, I'm Hiroe Asami! Wha!? Who the hell's—"

She cuts herself off again. Her mouth is working as if still attempting to speak, but no sounds emerge.

"It sounds like there are a bunch of you," I say. "Are any of you named Tokime Oyura?"

"Who's tha— No, I'm not— Oh, Aunt Oyura!? Stop that, everyone, let me spea— I'm not who you thi— I said sto—"

Again her mouth works in silence as the various personalities vie for control. After a minute or so, she manages to speak up again.

"Um, my apologies, my name is Tokime Hatsu," she says. "I somehow managed to convince the others to quiet down… but know ye what has happened to me? Are ye seeking Aunt Oyura?"

"Are you Miss Oyura's niece?" I ask. "Or is that just an affectionate way of calling her?"

"Indeed… I am her niece," the woman says.

"Um, are you a Tokime of the hidden village?" Shizuka asks.

"I lived there from the age of thirteen," Hatsu says. "That was the time when everyone in the head family moved into the village."

"Then that probably means you're my ancestor, right?" Shizuka says. "I'm Tokime Shizuka, the daughter of the current head family."

"I am afraid I cannot be your ancestor," Hatsu says. "I turned into a witch before I had a chance to marry and leave children. If ye are still considered the head family several generations later, ye most likely would be descended from my eldest sister, Lady Kaguya."

"I see," Shizuka says. "But I think that's close enough for you to consider yourself my ancestor."

Hatsu shrugs. "If ye wish to think of it in that way. Incidentally, since I seem to have been revived somehow, I have one very important question for you. What has become of the Grail of Calamity?"

"The grail… of calamity…?" Shizuka says. "I think there may have been something like that amongst the Mikoshiba's belongings…"

"So… it has not yet been destroyed?" Hatsu says.

"No, it appeared to be intact," Shizuka says.

"And have ye still my sword?" Hatsu asks. "It is an old tsurugi sword with no hand guard."

"I don't know if it was yours, but there was indeed an old sword stored with the grail," Shizuka says. "According to the records, the two are supposed to be used in the New Year's ceremony…"

"So is that how the Mikoshiba worked it into her system…?" Hatsu says. "From the way ye speak, may I understand that the Mikoshiba is no longer in control of the village?"

"That is correct," Shizuka says.

"Then, please use my sword to destroy the grail," Hatsu says. "If ye can find the missing handguard and reattach it, I hope it should be possible… that was after all the original purpose of that sword…"

"Eh…?" Shizuka says. "Um… I can't just agree to that out of the blue, but… I will… take your request into consideration."

This is an unexpected stroke of luck for me, though. I never expected Hatsu to pop out of Oyura's body and tell them about the sword herself.

"Anyway… ye said that ye seek Aunt Oyura, right?" Hatsu says. "Could I ask you to explain what has happened to me… nay, to us…?"

"Well… does anyone have a mirror?" I ask. "I'd like Miss Hatsu to get a look at herself."

"Ah, yes, I have one," Chika says.

She pulls out a hand mirror from her purse, and holds out out for Hatsu to gaze into it. Hatsu blinks in surprise.

"Huh!?" she exclaims. "I am Aunt Oyura…? No… I am in Aunt Oyura's body? And there are many other people in here with me."

Suddenly she gasps.

"Ah! T-that was the whole plan, to turn Aunt Oyura into a witch who would swallow the witches of all the Tokime diviners, to prevent the Mikoshiba's witch from getting too strong… but… but that means… if we are all here in one body… have ye found a way to reverse witchification!?"

"Yeah, kinda," I say.

"Then that means… Aunt Oyura should be in here somewhere too," Hatsu says. "I wonder if she is cowering because of this splitting headache…? I shall see if I can convince her to come out for you."

She closes her eyes, then rubs at her temples. Silence falls for a minute or so. Chiharu eventually breaks the silence.

"Um, so… could that be why the soul jewel looked strange?" she asks. "It's several souls merged together?"

"You might be on to something there, Miss Hiroe," I say. "I wonder, was it a mistake to revive her…? It looks like she's in pain, too…"

Suddenly the woman's eyes snap open, and she turns to look at us.

"You… what have ye done?" she asks. "Why am I here? How am I here? No… how are we here? So many souls, all those magical girls who fell into the Mikoshiba's trap…"

"Are you Tokime Oyura?" I ask.

"I… yes," she says. "The one speaking right now is Oyura. Will I have to live like this…? It hurts so much… really, what have ye done?"

"I'm sorry," I say. "I never thought it would turn out like this, that all the souls you devoured as a witch would end up merged together if I did this. There's really nothing else I can say other than that…"

"Well… I suppose that ye… cannot be blamed," Oyura mutters. "The very idea of… reviving a witch is… unprecedented."

She takes a deep breath and suddenly chants very quickly.

"Miryam Migdal, Miryam Migdal, Miryam Migdal."

"You know Mary!?" I gasp.

"Know ye of her too?" Oyura says. "Though she is an eccentric woman… I think she… may be able to help me."

At that moment, there's a weird twist of space, and suddenly Mary is right there in front of us. Somehow, her appearance produces a small shockwave that almost knocks us all off our feet.

«Oh,» Mary says, using telepathy from the start but apparently not bothering to restrict it to only Oyura. «Oh my. I never thought it would be you who summoned me. How has your research progressed?»

Oyura shakes her head. «Not very much at all, since you left,» she says. «But it's all stored in a safe place. More importantly… can you think of any way to get rid of this headache?»

«So, so many souls,» Mary says. «They've all latched on to your soul, dragging you down, down… it's not a full fusion like Chelsea Flanders, however. They can be separated… probably. But, I don't know if the parasitic souls would survive separation… how intriguing… and even if they did, where would they go instead…?"

"This is just a random thought," I say. "But if the other souls can survive separation, and if they're all former residents of the Tokime hidden village, meaning their remains rest at the bottom of the waterfall, then… using a DNA sample from those remains, I bet Pernelle could create new bodies to house each one. That said… I don't imagine all of them would want that… plus, I doubt Pernelle would even be willing to do it."

«Pernelle… I remember her, but… her understanding of souls is… probably no better than mine,» Mary says. «We shall need someone with a better understanding of souls than myself… the best would be Helene, of course… but there's no way that woman would agree to a request of mine, even if I could track her down. There's also… Livia…? She's new, so I'm not sure of the extent of her knowledge… must I reveal myself to them for the first time since the death of my beloved…?»

She ponders for a bit, then slaps a fist into her palm.

«Well then… I came to your aid, as promised, so let us go work something out.»

«Thank you,» Oyura says.

Mary reaches out and grasps Oyura's hand, and then the two of them vanish bit by bit, as if a gigantic eraser has struck them out of the world.

"That was… really weird," Chiharu says. "Who's that Mary woman…?"

"She's from the Middle East," I say. "You could say she's part of the origins of Christmas – you might have heard of her by the name Mary of Magdala."

"Christmas!?" Chiharu gasps. "J-just how old does that make her…?"

"Roughly two thousand years," I say. "She was probably born in the single or double digits BCE. The exact year is not recorded in history though…"

"Um… what is Christmas…?" Shizuka asks.

"Ah… I'll explain that to you later," Chiharu says.

"Okay, so this has all been very… enlightening," Sunao says. "But, if you don't mind… we're keeping those girls waiting, and I don't know how long we have before it's too late, so… could we hurry on to the Coordinator's?"

"Ah, yes," I say. "Let's go."

We head back through the portal, Kuzunoha following us. Shizuku blinks at her in surprise, but doesn't say anything. It looks like she's removed the fox ears and tails, at least. Then we head outside, and Sunao leads us to Suitoku Temple. We wait outside while she goes in alone, returning with the ten dancers, all of whom look nervous, and some a little scared. The two least nervous dancers are wheeling a large box between them, leading me to speculate as to what might be inside.

Then I lead the way to the Coordinator's place. Once we arrive there, we find not only Mitama waiting, but also Mayoi and Tsubasa. Mayoi jumps up and waves.

"Lita, I brought her!" she exclaims.

"Miss Taylor," Tsubasa says, nodding in greeting. "I only came because I was curious about your message – I don't promise to help out in any way."

"I don't even know if you can, anyway," I say.

"So, who are all these girls?" Mitama asks. "I recognize Miss Chika, of course, but… most of them aren't even magical girls, right?"

"Yes… you could say they're… victims of a magical girl?" I say. "Because of the magic used on them, their lives are in danger right now. The one who cast the magic is likely to die soon, and apparently, they die when she dies."

"I see," Mitama says. "But it doesn't sound like something I'd be able to help with… if they were magical girls themselves, then I might be able to do something, but…"

"Hmm, I think I understand your thought process, Miss Taylor," Tsubasa says. "The effect you describe is probably an effect of soul magic… magic similar to a Coordination, right?"

"That was indeed my thought process," I say.

"But even if it's similar, I have no idea how I'd even start to work on a normal person," Mitama says. "My mentor never even suggested it was possible…"

"Well… Livia's not the sort to share dangerous things that easily," Tsubasa says. "I think she's at least vaguely aware that it might be possible to use her techniques on a normal person… and the reason she disowned me was because I used them on myself a couple of times."

"I never even thought that would be possible," Mitama says. "Though, even if I'd known, I would be too scared to try it…"

"Hmm… it was the correct choice to ask me, though," Tsubasa says. "I've twice used this power on someone who was not a magical girl… though neither of them were what you'd call a normal person. But then again… these girls aren't exactly normal people either, are they?"

"Ah, um…!" one of the dancers speaks up. "I think… you could probably say we're not," she says. "Since we can… step through shadows…"

"Wait, you can still do that?" I say. "Wasn't that the power of the witch that the Mikoshiba was controlling?"

The dancer shakes her head. "It was Lady Mikoshiba's power," she says. "And as her, um… candidates for succession… we too possess the same power. Although, the devil was born of Lady Mikoshiba's ancestor, so it too had the same power."

"It's often said that the eyes are the window to the soul," Tsubasa says. "I believe that saying may be rooted in a nugget of truth – when I drew out that poor dying cat's soul, it was done through the eyes. Tsukihi-chan's eyes also darken if she uses a lot of magic, so I believe that too supports the theory. Therefore… I might be able to free you guys from this Lady Mikoshiba's influence. However… first of all, I can't promise it will work. In the worst case, you could even die. Is that acceptable?"

The dancer who spoke first looks around at the others, and they all nod in agreement. Then she looks back at Tsubasa.

"We'll probably all die anyway if nothing is done," she says. "So I'm okay with that."

"Secondly, I don't know what effect the treatment would have on those powers of yours," Tsubasa says. "You might lose them, but you might not."

"Um, well… I'd say they're convenient, but I can live without them," the dancer says.

Several of the other dancers nod or express vocal agreement.

"It looks like we're all in agreement," the original dancer concludes.

"Thirdly, I can't be certain until I see the bond up close, but I'm probably going to need physical contact with that Mikoshiba lady to perform the treatment," Tsubasa says. "How long would it take you to bring her over?"

"Actually, we anticipated that," Shizuka says. "She's in the buggy."

She indicates the large box that they'd wheeled over from the temple. That revelation startles even me – I'd been wondering what was in it, but the Mikoshiba herself hadn't even been on my radar as one of the options.

Tsubasa nods. "And now for the final caveat," she says. "Undoing a soul bond like the one you described is not easy. I suspect it's not even possible. Therefore, what I would be doing is not undoing it, but reassigning it. Just as right now you would die if that Mikoshiba lady were to die, after the treatment you will die if the new target of the bond is killed."

"I think… that would be acceptable," the dancer says. "But… who would that person be?"

"You could pick someone from the people here," Tsubasa says. "Or you could request someone who's not here. I'll have to add, though, that it would be easier for me if the target is a magical girl."

The dancers look at each other, and confer in whispers for a bit. Then the one who has apparently decided to be the spokesperson steps up to Shizuka and bows.

"Lady Shizuka, I ask this of you on behalf of all the dancers… will you be the one?"

"W-what!?" Shizuka gasps. "H-holding all of your lives in my hands like that… I don't know…!"

"I believe that you will bring prosperity to the village, milady," the dancer says. "I furthermore believe that you will live a long life. Therefore, in my opinion, the odds favour all of us dying before you do. So, please… will you do this so that we might live on as well, to see and even experience some of that prosperity?"

Shizuka looks at Chiharu, who shrugs, then at Sunao, who shakes her head.

"I definitely couldn't do that," Sunao says. "I'm sorry…"

"I agree it seems a bit scary," Chiharu says. "You'd technically be saving their lives, right? Which means that not agreeing might be like condemning them to death. But I think the decision should be yours, and yours alone. I don't know if I'd be able to handle it myself… so I wouldn't think less of you if you turned them down."

Shizuka looks desperately at Chika, but she also shakes her head.

"Sorry… I'm not at all interested in taking on a role like that," she says. "Unless Miss Ashley or Miss Inui are open to it… or, dare I say, even Miss Mitama…?"

"I won't use Miss Yakumo as the new target for the treatment," Tsubasa says firmly. "It would probably ruin her relationship with Livia. I wouldn't want to do that to her… nor to the magical girls of this city, who'd suddenly lose access to a licensed Coordinator."

"Ah, well… it's not like we had that great a relationship," Mitama says. "But I guess I agree that I wouldn't want to make it any worse than it already is… and I definitely want to continue being a Coordinator."

"Emotionally… I think I wouldn't mind taking that role," I say. "However… my soul is already a bit messed up, so I think it might not be a good idea to add this on top of it…"

"As for me… sorry, but I don't think I can do it," Inui says.

"I… I see," Shizuka says.

She falls silent, pondering for awhile. We wait in silence while she processes the idea. I see both her and the other Tokime girls occasionally going through a series of rapid expression changes, indicating telepathic conversation – it seems she's conversing privately with each of them. Then, finally, she speaks up.

"Alright, I'll do it!" she says. "I am the daughter of the head family, and they are citizens of the village, so they are my responsibility. I'll take on this burden for their sake!"

"Well said!" Tsubasa says, clapping her hands. "Alright then… Miss Yakumo, do you mind if I borrow your private room?"

"Well, I don't seem to have any customers right now, so sure, that's fine," Mitama says.

"Miss, um… sorry, what was your name, again?" Tsubasa says.

"Ah, I forgot to introduce myself," Shizuka says. "Or rather, all of us did. My name is Tokime Shizuka. These are my friends, Hiroe Chiharu, Toki Sunao, and Aoba Chika. And that woman standing in the corner is… how shall I put it… an old associate of the clan? Her name is Lady Kuzunoha."

Tsubasa's eyes go wide. "Kuzunoha!?" she exclaims.

She turns to face Kuzunoha, who looks up in surprise at hearing her name twice in a row.

"Yes…?" she says.

"Are you really, truly, Kuzunoha?" Tsubasa asks.

"Yes… that's… me," Kuzunoha says.

"Do you remember a woman named Laura of Wallachia?" Tsubasa asks.

"Laura… oh… that was… during Saki's… time," Kuzunoha says. "Before Saki… became Sakuya…"

"…the founder changed her name…?" Shizuka asks, startled.

"Yes… she was born… a servant, so… her friend… suggested a… grander name," Kuzunoha says.

"The clan founder was born a servant!?" Shizuka gasps. "N-no way… I never expected that…!"

"Why are you so surprised…?" Tsubasa says. "From the way you're speaking, I guess Tokime is some old noble clan… not one I've heard of, so I guess they don't compare to the Fujiwara or Matsumoto, but… that's all beside the point. The point is, any noble clan must be able to trace back their ancestry to a commoner at some point in the past. It's not like nobility is a status granted by the gods upon birth, regardless of what some people might say about the emperor being descended from Amaterasu – a bloodline needs to become nobility in some generation. So maybe your commoner ancestor is a bit closer than most, but it's not like that affects the nobility of your bloodline, does it? You became nobility because that commoner ancestor of yours did something worthy of recognition. That's something to be proud of, not ashamed."

"Y-you're right," Shizuka says. "Sorry, I was just… very surprised, but… she's the founder, after all, so thinking about it logically… it should have been obvious that she wasn't necessarily born into nobility herself. Still, I've been learning a lot of… unsettling things about my clan, recently… so… I was also a bit on edge, because of that…"

"Anyway, Miss Tokime, please come into the back with me and that Mikoshiba lady," Tsubasa says. "Then I'll take the dancers in one at a time. However… if the treatment fails on the first one, and I can't see an obvious remedy to make it work next time, I won't continue. That means that whoever goes first takes on most of the risk of the treatment backfiring."

"I'll go," the talkative dancer says. "I'll be the guinea pig. I'm sure it'll be fine, anyway."

"Then, let's get started," Tsubasa says.

So Shizuka, Tsubasa, and the dancer head into the back room, wheeling the box with them as well. The others find places to sit down, either on the couch in the case of the Tokime magical girls, or on the floor for Kuzunoha and the dancers. Inui and I take the other couch, alongside Mayoi.

"By the way, I was wondering about something," I say. "Miss Akatsuki visited your village and opened the time capsule, right?"

"Ah, that's right," Chiharu says. "There was an artifact controlling the barrier inside it, so we were able to adjust the barrier to make it more stable. It's still a bit unstable, so we're still planning to migrate out, but… it bought us a lot of time."

"This might be a long shot, but… did you happen to find an artifact in there that would be able to keep witches out of an area?" I ask.

"Um… sorry, I'm not sure," Chiharu says. "Everything was carefully labelled, but we haven't looked at them all in detail yet."

"If there does happen to be an artifact like that, I'd be interested in borrowing it," I say.

"Well… I can't promise anything," Chiharu says. "Even if we find one, that doesn't mean we'd let you borrow it… but we'll keep your request in mind."

"Thank you," I say.

"What are you plotting now, Miss Ashley…?" Chika asks.

"Oh, I was just thinking of bringing another ghost back to life," I say.

"That conversation you had with Lady Youha…?" Chika says. "I see… if the person you had in mind was dead to begin with, that explains why you said the conditions are not untenable…"

"I didn't expect you to catch on so fast," I say. "Though I guess I shouldn't really be surprised, since as you say you were there when I talked to Miss Youha about it…"

The trail of conversation ends there, and silence falls for a bit, until Inui pipes up with a new topic.

"Say, have you guys tried out that app yet?" she asks.

"Ah, that app," Chiharu says. "I haven't even looked at it yet… since we had all this weird stuff going on…"

"Isn't this a perfect time to try it out, then?" Inui suggests.

"You're right," Chiharu says.

She whips out the card and her phone, scanning the code with her camera.

"Oh, it asked me first, but now it's actually downloading," she says. "I never knew you could install apps like that… I've always just gotten them off the app store."

"It's probably not the most common method," I say. "The app store gives higher exposure and makes it easy for people to find your app, after all… but our situation is unique, so the app store would've been a bad choice for us."

"Us…?" Chiharu says.

"Ah, did I not mention it?" I say. "I'm involved in the production of that app."

"Ohh, I see!" Chiharu says. "Wow… that's awesome…"

"Well… it was someone else who did most of the hard work, though," I say. "And I have to agree that her work really is pretty awesome…"

"Karin-chan's icons are pretty nice too," Inui says.

"Huh? Were they drawn by Karin-chan…?" I ask.

"What are you saying?" Inui says. "It says it right there on the credits page! Did you not even read it…?"

I whip out my phone to take a look – I don't even recall seeing a credits page, but it might have been added after the last time I looked.

"Where's the credits page?" I ask.

"You can get to it from the bottom of settings," Inui says.

So I launch up the app and wait a minute for it to download an update. After it's downloaded, it quits itself and updates its icon. I launch it up again, scan my soul gem, then poke at the settings tab and scroll to the bottom. Sure enough, there's an [About] entry there. I tap it and see a grand total of three credit entries displayed.

[Production and Design: Lita]

[Programming: Hyades]

[Icon Art: HalloweenMaiden]

"Uhh… yes, that's definitely the sort of handle I'd expect Karin-chan to choose," I say. "But I'm surprised… I didn't expect her to be the one to do it."

"Oh, it's finished downloading!" Chiharu exclaims. "It's got an icon of a soul gem… it's a bit cartoony, but it looks great."

Chika and Sunao peek over her shoulder as she opens the app, and I peek too, with my clairvoyance. She types in the name Todoroki's Sidekick in Japanese without hesitation, then blinks at the next screen.

"Huh… my soul gem…?"

"What's that mean?" Sunao says.

"Is it something like a fingerprint…?" Chika wonders.

"Wait a moment, there's a link explaining it," Chiharu says.

She taps the [What this means] link, and an explanation pops up explaining the process of scanning the soul gem.

"Looks like you were right, Chika-chan," Chiharu says. "It's like a fingerprint, but for magical girls… that's amazing!"

"But is it safe to use something like a fingerprint for an app?" Chika wonders. "It's one thing to use it to unlock your phone, but… the app might be sending that information to unknown places…"

"Um… it says here it only sends a tiny piece of it, or something," Chiharu says. "I don't quite get it, but basically it's too big to actually send, so it's only stored on your phone…"

She exits out of the explanation and turns her soul into gem form, scanning it with her phone's camera.

"And, I'm in!" she exclaims.

At this point, instead of peeking over her shoulder, it's easier for me to look at my own phone screen. I go to the news page and notice there's a button in the corner to add a new article, but I don't want to do that. Instead I just scroll through the articles there. There are now four of them – the introductory one by 'Hyades' announcing the opening of the site, and introductory posts from the three writers Hijiri has already hired. Presumably 'SuperbShot' has to be Midori Ryo, while 'BurningCamellia' must be Suzune. That means that 'Hesperides' is surely the girl from Asunaro, whom I haven't yet met.

I check out the articles briefly. Ryo's article starts out introducing herself and then segues into an announcement about the formation of the Kamihama Magia Union, listing its chief leadership figures as Iroha, Yachiyo, Mifuyu, Momoko, Kanagi, Hinano, and Asuka. Suzune's article is just about introducing herself as a writer on the app, with no actual news in it.

The third article also starts with an introduction – the girl from Asunaro is apparently named Kanzaki Kanako. I really haven't met her before, then. There were quite a few girls in the Freezer though, and I never looked at all their names, so presumably she was one of them.

I do learn one interesting tidbit from her article – the Pleiades Saints and several of the girls from the Freezer have apparently decided to band together to form a larger group called Aldebaran. Kanako promises further details about that in a later article, so I guess I'll just have to wait.

"Hey, how do you get permission to post news articles?" Chiharu asks. "It looks like those people are just regular users, but I don't see any button to add an article… I was thinking maybe I could report on happenings in the Tokime village from time to time… if Shizuka-chan and the others are okay with that, of course."

"Well, I for one don't have a problem with that," Sunao says. "But yeah, we should probably ask Shizuka-chan too."

"At the moment, news posters are only assigned by Hyades," I say. "You can send her a private message asking about it, if you want. You can also mention that I was okay with the idea."

I switch to the discussion forum and find that there's already a surprising number of open topics for an app that's been released for only a few hours. The forum is divided into quite a few categories, but at the moment the only category with activity is the [Welcome] forum. I tap on that, and find the top post to be one that Chiharu literally just created to say hello. I tap it and read through the replies.

[TodorokiNoSidekick: Hiya everyone! This place looks amazing! I hope to get along with all of you!]

[Nagitan: Hmm. I shall give my greetings to you, Todoroki's Sidekick.]

[Hopebringer: Me too, I look forward to getting to know you, Todoroki's Sidekick!]

[HalloweenMaiden: Oh, another one joined! Hello, and welcome! It's finally starting to get busy in here…]

[PeacefulMaya: What do you mean, finally? It's only been open for a few hours, right?]

[Chiu: Did you not see the credits page? HalloweenMaiden made all the icons for this app. She probably had early beta testing access.]

[PeacefulMaya: Oh, my bad! That totally makes sense! The icons are very nice, by the way! And sorry for derailing your thread, Todoroki's Sidekick! It's nice to meet you!]

The most surprising thing about this conversation is that, if I haven't missed my guess, both Kanagi and Madoka have decided to chime in, not to mention Karin. I add a message of my own.

[Lita: Welcome to PMMM, Todoroki's Sidekick.]

Apparently, my name is displayed in red bold. I also noticed that Karin's name is in green bold. Everyone else's names are in blue, and not bold. After a little poking around for an explanation, I find a key at the bottom of the main forum page – apparently it's red for administrators, green for moderators, and orange for news posters.

Just above the colour key is a list of online users. There are several interesting names in that list, such as [TiroFinale], [HyakkiYagyo], and [FinalCut]. I can't be certain, but I would be very surprised if those were not Mami, Elise, and Mabayu, respectively. All the names from Chiharu's thread are also listed there, with the exception of [Nagitan]. It also notes that there are five hidden users online.

After posting welcomes in a few more introduction threads, I go to the settings section to see what settings are available. There's an entire section about which parts of your profile should be visible to other users; I don't really care that much, so I skip over it for now. There's a whole section for notifications as well – I set it to notify me only on private messages, help requests, and new articles, but there are a number of other options, such as notification on replies to topics you created, or topics you posted in, or all topics; or notifications when someone merely mentions you in the discussion forum, or when they quote your post; or notifications when someone sends a friend request, or when a friend logs in. It also has an option for how frequently to update the forum page when you're looking at it – it's set to once a minute by default, but I set it to the lowest possible value of every fifteen seconds. There's a section for customizing appearance and layout, which currently just says [Coming soon!]. There's an option to hide you from the online list, which I assume means that list of users I noticed at the bottom of the discussion forum – you can be either completely visible, completely hidden, or visible only to friends.

Then I take a look at the profile section and fill in the magic specialties field as well as my external accounts – my Twitter account, and Youtube for Ashley's vlog – and a list of the languages I can speak. There's slots for a wide variety of popular social media sites, including LINE and Discord, as well as a field for a personal website. I call upon Ashley to throw together a quick profile description as well, then set location to 'automatic' and save the changes. The gender field was prefilled as female, probably because the assumption is that all magical girls are, well… girls… but it appears to also have male, other, and unspecified listed as options. The location field now reads 'Kamihama, Japan'. It seems it lets you fill in any arbitrary value you want if not set to automatic.

Next I root around until I locate the invite button, tapping it to bring up a screen where I can input a list of emails. I switch to my contacts app to copy Sakuya's email and paste it in, then tap the button to send the invite. I want to invite Sara and Chevonne and the others too, but that will have to wait until the app is available in English. It sounds like that'll be soon, though.

While waiting for Tsubasa to finish whatever she's doing, I sit around and lurk in the welcome forum, watching as more and more threads pop and trying to guess who each of the posters is from their chosen username. Some are obvious, even going so far as using their real name, but there are also some that I can't even begin to speculate on.

Based on the dancers rotating in and out of the back room, I can surmise that Tsubasa's treatment has been successful, but I'm still startled when she and Shizuka emerge back into the front room – either I got way too engrossed in the app, or she worked much faster than I'd expected.

"All done?" I say.

"The treatment was successful," Tsubasa says.

"So, out of curiosity, can they still use the shadow step magic?" I ask.

The one to respond is dancer who had been acting as spokesperson, who had the treatment first.

"It seems that we can now use a different type of magic," she says. "I can make my hands glow and produce a small flame, but I can't sink into the shadows anymore."

"The magic they were using was a direct side-effect of the soul binding, it seems," Tsubasa says. "So now they are using Miss Tokime's magic, instead of that Mikoshiba lady's magic."

"However, it does not appear to affect my soul gem at all when they use it," Shizuka adds. "For which I am grateful."

"What are you going to do with the Mikoshiba now?" I ask.

"I think that since she wants to die so badly, we should just let her," Chika speaks up.

"I don't much like it, but… that's probably for the best," Shizuka says reluctantly.

"She's practically on her deathbed anyway," Tsubasa says. "I think that mouth wound of hers got infected… she could probably still make it through with proper treatment, mind you…"

"I suggest feeding her to a familiar," Inui says. "At least that way she can do some tiny bit of good in the world."

Nearly everyone blinks at her in surprise – only Mitama, Tsubasa, Kuzunoha, and myself don't show much of a reaction. I had actually been thinking the same thing, but thought I shouldn't say it.

"W-what do you mean by that?" Sunao asks. "How does feeding her to a devil's minion do any good…?"

"Well, it's not much, but it might slightly improve another magical girl's chance of survival in the future," Inui says.

"As for me, if it were my decision, I'd probably choose to format her," Tsubasa says. "Just wipe her soul clean until there's nothing left of the creature you know as the Mikoshiba. There's even a slight chance that the original woman's personality would resurface if I did that, though I wouldn't count on it."

"Original…?" Sunao says. "Ah, you mean the person from before the Mikoshiba transferred her memories to that body?"

"Who else would I mean…?" Tsubasa says.

"But how do you know about that…?" Shizuka asks.

"I've been fiddling with her soul for the last hour," Tsubasa retorts. "Surely you're aware what that means…?"

"Um… I'm afraid I don't understand the significance of that," Shizuka says.

"Allow me," Mitama speaks up. "I presume that 'fiddling with her soul' is similar to the Coordination that I perform. When I use my magic on someone, I can see parts of their memories, usually at random."

"Ah, now I understand," Shizuka says. "So you learned of her true nature while performing the treatment, due to that phenomenon."

"My apologies," Tsubasa says. "I didn't expect you to be unfamiliar with the concept of Coordination."

"In any case, I don't think I like that idea," Chiharu says. "It sounds like it's even worse than death… she's still alive but she's no longer herself…"

"And if the original personality did resurface, I'm not sure that would be an improvement," Chika muses. "Would she have to live knowing what terrible things she did as the Mikoshiba…?"

Tsubasa shrugs. "If you don't like the idea, then that's that," she says. "Anyway… let's discuss my compensation for this work."

"Huh? You're asking for payment…?" Chika asks.

"Not exactly," Tsubasa says. "I'm not asking for money or anything. All I want in return is Kuzunoha."

"W-what!?" all the Tokime girls gasp in unison.

"Huh…?" Kuzunoha speaks up. "Me…? What… is it…?"

"We can't just hand over Kuzunoha to you!" Shizuka protests.

"Calm down," Tsubasa says. "I don't mean to take her from you on a permanent basis or anything. Rather, what I'd like is a promise from her."

Kuzunoha nods. "Tell me," she says. "I consider."

"I'd like you to visit my town for a little while," Tsubasa says. "It doesn't have to be right this minute, but I would prefer it to be sooner rather than later. There is someone who desperately wishes to see you again."

"I… see," Kuzunoha says. "Then… I will. Soon. Where…?"

"I live in the town of Jouetsu, on the west coast of Honshu," Tsubasa says. "It's in Niigata Prefecture."

Kuzunoha nods. "I will… travel… by air," she says. "Look for… great eagle."

Tsubasa says. "I'll keep an eye out for you, then. Thank you very much… and one more thing, Miss Taylor?"

"Hmm…?" I say.

"You mentioned earlier that Miss Dramaturgy passed away," she says. "Would you mind telling me who you heard that from?"

"Oh, I heard it from Hilda," I say.

"Ahh… do you mean Hildegard von Bingen?" Tsubasa asks. "If it's her, then I can certainly trust the news… does that mean she's in Japan, or were you recently in Europe?"

"Last I heard, she was staying in Futatsugi," I say.

"Oh, then I should pay her a visit," Tsubasa says. "Thank you for the information. Mayoi?"

"Y-yes!" Mayoi exclaims, leaping to her feet.

"You don't have to be so surprised," Tsubasa retorts. "Let's go home."

"Ah… right!" Mayoi says.

She transforms and punches a portal, and the two of them hop through. The portal then closes behind them.

"So what are you going to do with the Mikoshiba?" I ask.

"Hmm," Shizuka says.

She falls silent for a little while, then nods.

"All in favour of sentencing her to become devil food?"

Chika and I raise my hand, though I'm not sure if my vote actually counts. After a moment, Sunao and Inui follow suit.

"Charu, do you wish to say anything?" Shizuka asks.

"I just don't like the idea," Chiharu says. "It doesn't sit right with me somehow… I'm not sure how to put it into words."

"I see," Shizuka says. "Then, all in favour of a simple, painless execution?"

This time, Sunao and Chiharu raise their hands, and then Kuzunoha speaks up.

"Painless… yes," she says. "Don't become… like her…"

"Then I guess that decides it," Shizuka says.

I guess that means my vote didn't count.

"Alright, I'll leave you to take care of that," I say, getting to my feet. "I have a dinner party to get to, so I'll see you later."

"Seeya, Miss Ashley!" Chiharu says.

"Yes, let us meet again," Shizuka says.

"See you soon, Miss Ashley," Chika says.

---

Inui and I split up from the Tokime group, heading to the station to catch a train back to Mitakihara. Coeurl is waiting for us outside the station. She steps up to the two of us with a smile.

"You're going to meet Kiriha Kosane now, right?" she says. "It's been so long since I saw her, so after giving it some thought, I figured it might be nice. I've decided to accept the invitation."

"Great," I say. "We should probably head straight there, as it's starting to get late…"

"Well, we already told Hii-tan's parents we'd be home late anyway," Inui says.

"Yeah, since we'll be eating dinner at Homura's place… but we don't want to be late there either."

On the train, Inui and Coeurl chat about various things, none of them of any particular import. When we get off the train, I lead the way to the place where Homura used to live alone. Sure enough, there's lights on within. When I knock on the door, it's answered by Nagisa of all people.

"Oh, it's you," Nagisa says. "Guess you'd better come in…"

As the three of us step inside and remove our shoes, Nagisa goes back to whatever she was doing with Yuma. It looks like the entire Holy Brigade is already here, as well as Momo and Mabayu.

Kosane gets to her feet as we enter, smiling at us.

"Welcome," she says. "Miss Ashley, Miss Inui, and… Coeurl."

"You… are you really Kiriha Kosane?" Coeurl asks. "You look completely different from what I remember…"

Kosane chuckles. "Well, it's true that I've changed a lot since that time," she says. "But I really am the person you remember. I myself remember meeting you in that horrible future."

"Have you told Madoka and the others your story?" I ask.

"They said I should wait for you to arrive," Kosane says.

"Is that so… I suppose everyone's been waiting in anticipation all this time," I say.

"Yes, I can't wait to hear it!" Madoka exclaims. "It sounds like Homura-chan's mother had quite the adventure when she was younger."

"I'm not really interested," Homura mutters.

At that moment, there's another knock on the door. We're not expecting anyone else, though, as far as I know. Madoka jumps up and runs over to see who it is.

"H-huh!?" she gasps.

"U-um… t-they told me… Miss Taylor would be here…?"

It's a familiar girl's voice… it can't be…?

"Ah… yes, she is," Madoka says.

She steps aside to let the girl enter. As I thought from the voice, it's Tamura.

"Oh, it's Tamura-chan," Kosane says.

Homura blinks at her. "Huh…?"

But Tamura is even more startled.

"M-mother!?" she gasps. "W-what are you d-doing here…?"

Kosane laughs.

"No, I'm not your mother, Tamura-chan," she says. "But I guess this is our first time officially meeting, isn't it? The last time I saw you, you were just a baby. You can call me Aunt Kosane."

"Ah… um… are you and Mother… twins…?" Tamura asks.

"Pretty much," Kosane says.

"Well… I guess that explains the inexplicable Homura doppelganger," I say.

"I didn't even know you had a sister, Mother," Homura says.

"N-nor did I," Tamura says.

Kosane shrugs. "We're not exactly on the best of terms, after all."

For my part, although I knew Kosane had a sister, I didn't expect her to be alive.

"Anyway, what did you want from me, Tamura-chan?" I ask.

"Ah, um…"

She turns to face me and switches to telepathy.

«At first I thought it was just a bad dream… but it happened three days in a row. I think it's probably a vision… but it's unlike any other vision I've had, so forgive me if I'm wrong…»

She pauses, so I nod and encourage her to continue. «Go on.»

«The thing is… it seemed like a vision of the future, rather than an alternate past,» Tamura says. «You were fighting a… a punk girl with pink hair. The enemy wore a leather jacket and wielded a huge hammer.»

Something about that description tugs at my memory. I feel like I've heard a similar description from someone else before, but I can't quite place it.

«She was strong, but you probably could've easily defeated her under normal circumstances. However… your soul gem was in bad shape, and the other magical girl had regeneration at least as good as Miss Miki's… no, I think it was probably even better, almost as good as Miss Tsukihi's. The fight ended with you turning into a witch.»

«Did you catch the girl's name?» I ask.

«Um… I'm afraid not,» Tamura says. «I'll let you know if I do, though… I saw that same fight last night and Sunday night, but on Monday night it was different. You were flying through the air carrying an unconscious young girl with red hair. Again, your soul gem was in bad shape. You landed on a beach and then turned into a witch, swallowing up the girl as well.»

«Can you see that girl here?» I ask.

Tamura looks around the room, her eyes soon settling on Momo.

«Maybe… that… might be her,» she says, gesturing. «I can't be certain though…»

«I see… thank you for the information,» I say. «If you truly saw me carrying Momo-chan, it's likely it was a vision of the past… which suggests that the other vision you saw was also from the past. Please do let me know if you learn anything else about those possible events. It could actually be very important.»

«Yes… I will,» Tamura says.

"You finished your conversation yet?" Kosane asks.

"Huh…?" Tamura says, blinking at her.

"I could tell you guys were having a private little chat," Kosane says. "Are you done yet?"

"Ah, um… yes…?" Tamura says.

"Would you like to stay over for dinner?" Kosane asks. "Or is Eruna expecting you back?"

"Um… Mother is… out," Tamura says. "So… when I go back… I'd have to cook…"

"Then you must stay and eat with us!" Kosane says.

"O-okay…" Tamura says.

"You probably shouldn't tell Eruna you ate at my place though," Kosane says. "Who knows what she'll say…"

"R-right…"

"Alright, then let's get this party started!" Kosane says.

Over dinner, Kosane works her way through the story of her journey to the future. There's nothing really new to me, since I've read the novel. There are some minor details that are different or additional, but nothing that I can put my finger on as being radically different. That is until we reach the endgame, where Kosane and her twin sister, Eruna, are fighting each other across time for the right to decide history. The novel left this open-ended, with no resolution.

"So… how did you escape that loop, Mother?" Homura asks, now interested despite herself.

"Well… it eventually dawned on me that there was no way out within my power," Kosane says. "And if it dragged on for too long, I would have probably become a witch myself. However… if you remember how I became a magical girl in the first place…?"

"Um… didn't you say that… you granted your own wish or something…?" Madoka says hesitantly.

"Correct," Kosane says. "Because I'd obtained the powers of the incubators, I was able to turn myself into a magical girl. But if I could do it to myself, I thought, then surely I could do the same with other girls, right? So while bouncing back and forth across time, I started looking for girls who would be able to make a wish… but not just any wish. I wanted someone who'd make the wish I asked them to make, rather than a wish for themselves."

"I see," Mami muses. "Your own power was unable to prevail, but if you made use of the miracle of a magical girl's wish, then anything should be possible, right?"

"That was my thought process, yes," Kosane says. "I ended up turning seven youngsters into magical girls, and as a result, I came back to the present time, and Eruna was granted a body. Both of us are no longer magical girls either, due to the wishes of those girls."

"Do you remember the names of those girls?" I ask.

"Let me think," Kosane says. "There were two girls who had pointed ears like elves… one of them called herself Lucretia and seemed to be a princess. The other one… I think she was called something like Yunitia, and she seemed to be a knight. I don't know how the names are spelled."

"I remember hearing stories about Lucretia back on Wilussa," Coeurl says. "That other name sounds vaguely familiar too, but… I don't think she was a magical girl. Or if she was, she kept a much lower profile."

"Maybe I got to her later on, after those stories you heard," Kosane says. "Her contract might even be in the future from our perspective. From my perspective, all seven of them were contracted at the same time, but… I wasn't exactly in good state to judge time…"

"Who else did you contract with?" I ask.

"There was one creature that wasn't human at all," Kosane says. "She was sort of like a squid, with a bunch of tentacles… she never gave a name, but I think she ended up on Earth after her wish. I haven't heard mention of her arrival on the news though… maybe it's still in the future…"

"If she had tentacles, she'd probably be a Thinker," Coeurl says. "They're an intelligent species that spread from the Triangulum galaxy and colonized the Andromeda galaxy before venturing into the Milky Way. They joined the alliance late, and their technological advancements played a major role in our ability to hold off so long. In fact, the planet Terminus was originally one of their homeworlds… but by the time you showed up, Kosane, there weren't any of them left, at least on Terminus. I hadn't heard of them possessing magical potential, though…"

"There was also a girl who had the ears and tail of a cat," Kosane says. "I think her name was… something like Miaray? I remember thinking it really suited her… though it was probably a rather rude thought…"

"Ah, I heard of her too," Coeurl says. "They called her a great sage on Wilussa… I think they said she was over fifty years old, yet apparently looked even younger than me."

"The rest were normal humans," Kosane says. "There was a terrified young red-haired girl hugging a teddy bear… I don't remember her name, though. There was also a sickly girl named Manatsu, but I didn't get her surname… and last of all was an older blonde girl named Kanade Kanata."

"The only one of those that sounds familiar is Kanata, who was apparently being hailed as a hero on Wilussa," Coeurl says.

"Okay, now it's your turn, Coeurl," Kosane says. "How about you tell me about what happened to you after you got thrown into the past?"

"Ah, sure," Coeurl says.

So she goes ahead and tells us about her isekai-like experience on the planet Wilussa, where she fought wraiths and occasionally worked as an interpreter between people who didn't share a language. After her encounter with Discordia resulting in her being shunted to Earth, she continues the tale right up to the present time, describing her role in the Wings of the Magius and the battles against Shitori Egumo and Walpurgisnacht. When she's finished, Kosane sits back in thought for a minute or two before commenting.

"That's all very interesting," she says. "Especially the part about humans living on another planet right now. I mean, there hasn't been any development of faster-than-light travel yet – that wasn't supposed to come for another few thousand years. And as for contact with extraterrestrials… there was none in the history I glimpsed. It wasn't until well after the Magi Wars broke out that humanity even realized they weren't alone in the universe… so it's quite surprising to find out that there are already humans living on another planet. It sounds like that magical girl, Discordia, somehow transported them there?"

"Yeah, that's probably a good guess," Coeurl agrees. "Possibly quite a long time ago, even. No-one I spoke to seemed to have any inkling that they came from another planet. That said… the two unique species on that planet, the Alf and the Caish, also appeared in the future I came from. They were extinct before you showed up, Kosane, so you wouldn't have seen them, but they definitely existed."

"Come to think of it, you also mentioned another race I didn't meet in that future," Kosane says. "You called them… the Thinkers, right? Were they also extinct before I showed up?"

"I don't know," Coeurl says. "Certainly there were none left on Planet Terminus, and I doubt any remained in the Milky Way, but… there might have been some in other galaxies. They had developed space-faring technology many thousands of years earlier than humanity, after all. If they could travel from Triangulum to Andromeda to the Milky Way, I'm sure they could've made it to other galaxies as well. We were feeling pretty hopeless back on Planet Terminus, but… if there was anything in that future that might have stood a chance of defeating the Homo magica, it was definitely the Thinkers. Even more so now I've heard that one of them managed to make a contract to become a magical girl – if they could replicate the wish-fulfillment technology of the Edalon, then I bet they could make a comeback."

"Um… what is an Edalon…?" Madoka asks.

"I'd like to know that too," Kosane says.

"They are the species that built the incubator system," Coeurl says. "Has Kyuubey never mentioned their creators to you…?"

"Kyuubey… was created…?" Madoka says. "I thought Kyuubey himself was an alien species…"

"No… they're autonomous drones designed by the Edalon," Coeurl says. "I didn't realize Kyuubey kept that information to themself in this era…"

"Well, Kyuubey is not the type to share information without a reason," I say. "It probably just figured we had no reason to know that. If we had asked the right questions, maybe we would have learned that truth. But just how much do you know about the Edalon, Coeurl?"

"Not a whole lot," Coeurl says. "They originally came from what humans call the Black Eye Galaxy, if memory serves. They colonized about five or six worlds near the centre of the Milky Way, but those were eventually wiped out by Homo magica. We never heard from them again after that, though the incubators survived their masters by at least a century. The Edalon did share some technology with us during the war, such as the grief extractor and the grief dispersal systems, but they mostly viewed themselves as a superior race and acted all aloof in their few interactions with us. Their appearance… is really hard to describe, but it sort of makes you sick if you look directly at them."

"Enough of this depressing talk!" Madoka suddenly pipes up. "Ashley-chan, you'll never guess what happened earlier."

"Huh? What's this about?" I ask.

"Miss Mami was scouted!" Madoka exclaims. "They want her to be an idol!"

I blink at her in surprise. It's not completely out of left field – I think I remember a non-canon spin-off manga where that happened – but I never expected it to happen in this world.

"…you're right, that would've been hard for me to guess," I say. "It would've taken me at least ten guesses to get to that… maybe more. How'd that happen?"

"Well… it was just after we'd gotten out of karaoke and were waiting for Homura's mother," Madoka begins.

---

Everyone emerged from the karaoke place, and Madoka and the others said goodbye to the West Mitakihara group, who were planning to walk home. As they waited for Kosane to arrive, they were accosted by a man and woman in business suits.

"Excuse me!" the man said. "Um, you with the golden ringlets…"

Mami blinked. "Huh…? Me?"

"Yes, you," the man said. "My name is Mr Shimizu, and my companion here is Ms Yamazaki. We were wondering, have you ever considered becoming an idol?'

"W-what!?" Mami gasped. "A-are you sure…? Although I'm pretty busy already…"

"What are you saying, Miss Mami!" Sayaka exclaimed. "We can pick up some of the slack for you, you know!"

"You seem interested," Madoka said. "Do you really want to do it…?"

"Well… it used to be a dream of mine," Mami admitted. "But I'd already given up on it…"

"But you're such a good singer," Madoka said. "Why would you give up so easily…?"

"So, I take it you're interested?" Mr Shimizu said. "We could even sign a contract right now, if you want. Though we'll need your parent's signatures, of course…"

Mami blinked. "Ah… my parents…"

"Oh… is that going to be a problem?" Mr Shimizu asked. "Are your parents strict? We can come home with you to convince them…"

"No, that's not it," Mami said. "I don't have any parents…"

"Then your legal guardian," Mr Shimizu said.

"I… don't think I have one…?" Mami said.

Mr Shimizu and Ms Yamazaki both looked surprised at that.

"That… could be a bit of a hurdle," Mr Shimizu said.

But Kosane had walked up at that exact moment.

"Excuse me," she said. "I couldn't help but overhear that… if you truly don't have a legal guardian, I could become your legal guardian. Or, if you're just not sure who it is, I could help you figure it out."

Mami blinked at her. "Huh? Ah, um… Mrs Akemi? It wouldn't seem right to accept something like that from someone I just met…"

"Now, now, that's a bit rude," Kosane said with a smile. "I know we haven't known each other long, but you seem to be great friends with my only daughter, after all. Therefore it's only right for me to support you the same way I would support her."

"Well… I suppose that makes sense," Mami admitted.

"Anyway, Mr… Shimizu, was it?" Kosane said. "I can sign that contract for you if you'd like. Assuming Miss Mami is interested, I can work out the paperwork for becoming her legal guardian at the same time. If it turns out she has a legal guardian already, I can also get their signature."

"You should give it a try, Miss Mami!" Madoka said. "It was your dream, right? You've finally gotten the chance you were waiting for, right? So you can't let this opportunity get away!"

Mami sighed, then nodded. "Alright," she said. "I'll accept your offer, Mrs Akemi, Mr Shimizu, Ms Yamazaki. However… do I have to fill out the paperwork right now? We were just on our way to a dinner party…"

"There's no rush," Mr Shimizu said. "I'll just give you the paperwork, and you can drop it off at our office later."

"Thank you very much," Mami said.

She accepted the sheet of paper Mr Shimizu handed over and stowed it away. The two of them then moved away, perhaps to observe other people exiting the karaoke place.

---

"So, Miss Tomoe's going to make her debut," I say. "Good luck."

"Ah… thank you…?" Mami says.

"Did you work out the issue of the legal guardian yet?" I ask.

"I'm afraid it's not something that can be worked out so easily," Kosane says. "We did check some of the obvious candidates, such as her landlady. It's quite possible that she really doesn't have one, though, and I've already filled out the paperwork to apply for the role."

"Oh yeah, she said she'd also apply to become the official guardian for Nagisa," Mami says.

"Is that going to work?" I wonder. "Since Nagisa's father is probably still alive…"

"Well, if he doesn't dispute it, it could be permitted," Kosane says.

"There's no way that man would do something like that," Nagisa mutters.

"What about Miss Sakura, then?" I ask. "Not going to become her guardian too?"

"It ain't none of yer business," Kyouko snaps. "I'm just fine on my own, thank you very much."

"As you can see, she turned down my offer," Kosane says. "There's not much I can do if she doesn't want it."

"Then are you going to join the Chitose family?" I ask. "Or maybe the Miki family? You two already get along like sisters, so it wouldn't change much."

"We do not!" Sayaka and Kyouko shout, almost in unison.

They glare at each other, and I sigh.

"Fine, fine, whatever," I say. "Oh, there's always that priest guy, what was his name… Fujimura Shouhei, I believe?"

"I don't want to meet him," Kyouko retorts. "Some friend he is, standing back while my father wallowed in despair and set the place on fire."

"So you do know who I mean," I say.

"Of course," Momo says. "Father Shouhei was probably Dad's best friend. Whatever onee-san says, I wouldn't mind seeing him again…"

"He drops by Sakura Church about once a month, so if ya really wanna see him, just pop over there on the first Sunday of the month and odds are you'll run into him," Kyouko says.

"Does that mean this Sunday is the best time to catch him?" Momo asks.

Kyouko shrugs. "Beats me… but it ain't the worst time, that's for sure."

"Though May started on a Sunday this year, so it's technically not the first Sunday of the month," I note.

"Well, I suppose I have time to think about it," Momo says.

"Alright, since it looks like most of you are finished eating… does anyone have room for dessert?" Kosane asks. "I picked up some ice cream if you want it."

"Yes please!" Madoka exclaims.

Her agreement is followed by a chorus of seconds, so Kosane gets up to fetch it.

---

When I get back to the Hayashi house, Hiyori hails me from the living room, just like last time.

"Oh, you're back, Ashley-chan!" she calls. "Come into the living room!"

When I enter the living room, I find both of the sisters there, along with Claire and Shiori, the latter of whom appears to have dozed off. Hiyori has her harp out and is playing something that sounds suspiciously like Magia, though there are a bunch of mistakes so I guess she hasn't quite gotten the hang of it. And of course, the box is sitting there in the centre of the room.

"Huh, what's with the random box?" Inui asks.

"It's a package that arrived awhile ago," Komachi says. "It's addressed to you, Ashley-chan."

I pick up the pair of scissors that someone has helpfully set on top of the box, using it to puncture the tape and opening the box. Within it, sitting on top of some folded clothing, is the original Kumanosuke, identical to my Teddy Mk II but about one-sixth the size.

"Huh?" Komachi says. "Isn't that the bear you use in battle? Or a smaller version of it."

I nod. "This is Teddy Mk I," I say.

"Huh…? But the other one was Mk II, wasn't it?" Komachi says.

"Correct," I say. "Teddy Mk II was based on this little guy. That's why he's Mk II."

Hiyori stops playing her harp to look at me.

"Are you saying… you knew this bear would show up here today?" she asks. "But wait… you must've already known before you even became a magical girl, right? Otherwise, how could the bear created with your magic be based on this?"

"Yeah," I say. "You're right. I should call Mom and Dad and thank them for the gift… so if you'll excuse me? Oh, and that song was sounding pretty good, Hiyori-chan, though it clearly needs a bit more work."

"You don't need to tell me that!" Hiyori protests.

"But yeah, go on and make that call," Komachi says.

I pick up the box and head upstairs, followed by Inui. Setting the box down on the desk, I flop down on the bed and open up my phone, dialling Ashley's mother. It rings for quite awhile, but eventually she picks up.

"Hello, it's Ashley," I say in English. "Sorry for calling so late…"

"Ah, you should've told me if you planned to call," Mrs Taylor says. "I would've stayed up for you."

"Well, it wasn't planned ahead, I'm afraid," I say. "The truth is, I just opened the package from you and Dad, and it made me want to talk to you and make sure Dad is still okay…"

"I see," she says. "Your father is still in the hospital, but they're saying he's over the worst of it and is expected to make a full recovery."

"Is that so?" I say. "I'm very glad to hear it… in that case, I'll call again soon so I can talk to him directly and thank him. Sorry for calling so late… I must've woken you up, right?"

"Don't you worry about that," Mrs Taylor says. "It was worth it to get to hear your voice again."

"And we also owe you an apology," I say. "We can't get into the details of why, especially over the phone, but… we just wanted to apologize."

"Well, I'm not sure what you think you've done, but apology accepted," Mrs Taylor says.

At that moment, a rather outlandish thought suddenly occurs to me.

"Say, Mom…?"

"Yes, what is it…?" she asks.

"You have a lot of connections as an actress, right?"

"Well… I suppose I have more than the average person, yes," Mrs Taylor says.

"I was just wondering if you could do me a favour and let Chevonne or Janice know if you ever hear anything about a certain person," I say.

"I suppose I could do that, though of course I can't promise that I'll actually hear anything," Mrs Taylor says. "Do you have a name or description of this person?"

"Yes, her name is Leandra Isabella García Katz," I say. "Last we heard, she could be anywhere from Mexico City to Portland to Houston."

"That's a fairly unusual name," Mrs Taylor says. "And it sounds like she gets around a lot too, huh? I could even ask around a bit if you'd like."

"Well, there's no urgency or anything," I say. "I'm not sure if it's a good idea to ask around, either."

"May I ask why you're looking for this person?" Mrs Taylor asks.

"Sorry, it's not something we should talk about over the phone," I say. "Maybe we can give you the explanation in the fall when we get back."

"Well, if I do hear anything, I'll let your friends know," Mrs Taylor says. "But I'll be cautious about asking around."

"Thank you very much," I say. "I'll talk to you later."

"Good night, Ashley."

"Good night."

With that, I hung up.

"I didn't expect you to ask her to search for the Coordinator," Inui says. "That caught me off guard."

"The idea just occurred to me all of a sudden," I say. "If she knows a lot of people, then why not? It might even turn out to be more effective than the way Chevonne and the others were searching."

"Yeah, it's just that it blatantly breaks the unwritten rule that magical girls are supposed to remain undercover," Inui says.

"Yeah, but I intend to break that rule even more blatantly before long," I say. "I'll smash it right out of the water and reveal the existence of magical girls to the public, and we'll see how the Vatican reacts when the proof of our existence is plastered across computer monitors worldwide."

"I can't imagine it'll be pretty," Inui says.

"Which is why I'm not going to force any specific magical girl to go public with her identity," I say. "It's enough for me to risk my own life against the unknown forces of the Vatican. I won't even let on that you're one if you'd rather remain in the shadows."

"Yeah, well… that's a big decision, so I'll think about it when the time comes," Inui says. "But enough of this scary talk… it's getting late, so let's go to bed!"

"Right," I say.

We get changed into our pyjamas and slip under the covers. I must've been more tired than I thought, because I'm fast asleep before I realize.

---

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.

Clarisse van Rossum

Age: 550
Eye Colour: Amber
Hair Colour: Red
Origins: Zaltbommel, Gelderland, The Netherlands
Symbol: Scroll and quill
Soul Gem: Circular pink gemstone at her crown
Element: Null
Weapon: Steelbound book with a lock
Powers: Copying memories and powers, exclusion from human memory, universal translation, respawning from a grief seed
Wish: "I wish to be a witness to the history of humanity."

Speed: 2
Magical Stamina: 10
Offensive Power: 4
Defensive Power: 4
Initial Power Usability: 2
Learned Powers: 10

Kuzunoha
葛の葉

Age: about 12 centuries
Eye Colour: Violet
Hair Colour: Black
Origins: Edo bay area, Japan
Symbol: Red leaf
Soul Gem: Red teardrop-shaped gemstone on her left anklet
Element: Fire
Weapon: Tsurugi sword with a leaf design on the hand guard
Powers: Ball lightning, fire and heat resistance, animal transformation (mammals, birds, reptiles only)
Wish: "I want to survive!"

Speed: 9
Magical Stamina: 10
Offensive Power: 2
Defensive Power: 5
Initial Power Usability: 4
Learned Powers: 4

Tokime Oyura (legion version)
時女尾揺良

Age: ¿?
Eye Colour: Grey
Hair Colour: Black
Origins: Tokime Village, Shinriku Prefecture, Japan
Symbol: Random Noise
Soul Gem: Unknown
Element: {Unity}
Weapon: Multiple
Powers: Unknown
Wish: "…!"
Affiliation: Tokime Clan

Speed: 24
Magical Stamina: 19
Offensive Power: 72
Defensive Power: 34
Initial Power Usability: ¿?
Learned Powers: 1012

---

There's probably way too much infodumping in this chapter (not to mention a couple more TTS references), but I guess that's just how it's going to be. Some possibly long-awaited characters show up for the first time, Tsubasa shows off her abilities, and we learn a bit more about Coeurl's future and Wilussa.

The next chapter has been started, but only barely, so it's very unlikely to be done by next week. Expect a wait of at least two weeks, maybe more.

Note: The wish listed in the profile for Oyura was supposed to be a very long ellipsis terminated by three exclamation marks, but FanFiction seems to have decided that people are not allowed to use several ellipses or exclamation marks in a row, so please just imagine that it has been stretched out. Or read it on AO3, which doesn't try to police my writing with opaque, arbitrary, and unmentioned rules.

(This actually makes me realize that it has stripped out triple exclamation marks elsewhere in my writing too – it's not like I use them often, but there are definitely a few occasions where they seemed appropriate. I'm going to have to scour every chapter for them so I can fix them now… if anyone knows of any other weird things FanFiction censors that might have affected my writing, please let me know.)

---

Review Responses

Here I'm going to respond to reviews from the last three chapters. I'm not going to respond to each and every comment, and I'll avoid any responses that give heavy spoilers, so apologies if I don't mention your review (and thanks for commenting regardless). As before, I will quote the text that I'm responding to for each review, in addition to noting the commenter and time. I'll also note that there could be some mild spoilers in these responses, so read on at your own risk.

JAGwin (chapter 111, Feb 12, 2024)

› Wait, hold on. *double checks wiki* Sarasa is from Mizuna, not Daito. Are you sure you're not thinking of Mikoto?

I checked her personal story again, and you appear to be correct that it doesn't say she came from Daito. She was certainly bullied, but no reason was given… though I guess it was most likely because she was an orphan. Technically, it doesn't directly contradict the idea that she lived in Daito, as it doesn't seem to say where she lived at all. Based just on her personal story, I'd peg her as a Chuo girl, I think. But it's entirely possible that another event mentions she's from Mizuna. Right now, as far as I know, the only indication that she's from Mizuna is in the stickers.

I must've gotten Hanna, Mitama, and Mikoto all mixed up a bit there. It's not a high priority for revisions, as I could also explain it away as Ashley making that mistake, but I'll add it to a list of things to consider.

› What happened, at least in canon, is Iroha made her Wish, the Hospital Trio saw her fighting a Witch, AND THEN Touka questioned Kyubey. I think Touka also read Tasuke's book between seeing Iroha fighting that Witch and meeting Kyubey, but I don't quite remember for sure.

I rewatched the section of chapter 10 where that scene occurs. It's definitely clear that she read Tasuke's draft well before Iroha contracts, but apparently learned nothing when she looked into it, which I suppose implies that she hadn't met Kyuubey before Iroha contracted. The scene where she's referring to Tasuke's draft occurs when she was at home on a short leave from the hospital, from my understanding. The following scene describes Ui's impending discharge, indicating it occurs after Iroha's contract. The scene after that is where the trio are sucked into a labyrinth and rescued by Iroha. Then Touka left the hospital again for a short time before contacting and attempting to hack Kyuubey.

So, questioning Kyuubey did happen after Iroha contracted, as you say. The timing of Touka reading Tasuke's draft is more ambiguous, but the evidence points to it being before Iroha contracted. It probably wouldn't contradict the data if you placed it slightly after Iroha contracted though, assuming that Iroha contracted while Touka was out of the hospital. I'm not sure if there's any evidence proving that Touka was definitely in the hospital on the day Iroha contracted.

Of course, that's in the game's timeline. Things probably went a little differently in this timeline, given that Ashley had to explicitly draw Kyuubey's attention to the trio. Perhaps the event of them getting sucked into the labyrinth never happened. (I don't remember if I've alluded to it elsewhere in the fic…) That would mean Touka grilled Kyuubey not because they discovered Iroha was a magical girl but because Ui was offered a contract.

That said, even if the fic's version of events is different from the game's in that area, it seems unlikely that Touka actually met Kyuubey before Iroha contracted. I'm not sure yet whether I'll leave it as is and chalk it up to Iroha being an unreliable narrator, or tweak it slightly to say Touka had merely heard of Kyuubey before Iroha contracted.

› Isn't it the "Wandering Deity"?

The exact name is "Yurayura-sama" (the wiki states it without the honorific). It may have been translated as "Wandering Deity" somewhere, but if you were to take it as a descriptor rather than a name, it would translate as something like "swaying". So I personally think "wavering" is closer to the intent than "wandering".

› Granted, she hasn't met her yet on this Timeline, so that could be a reason for her to be more formal than usual... or I could just be misremembering. That's always a possibility.

You appear to be correct, but I also want to mention that this is the Iroha who came back in time, meaning that she has met Kanagi, though Kanagi hasn't met her yet in this timeline.

plowplum (chapter 111, Feb 13, 2024)

› On the Tokime plotline, I'm not quite sure why Chelsea felt the need to intervene by sending Chika to help out the Tokime trio considering how the Green Jasper Diviner event turned out fairly well with the exception of Mikoshiba escaping justice via committing suicide from poisoning and if Chelsea wanted to prevent that from happening like in Timeline 4 perhaps she ought to have sent a healer

I would say it was more along the lines of that she learned Chika planned to go there anyway and decided to drop some hints in the hopes of an even better result. She didn't send Chika there with the intent of getting her to help out; Chika had decided on her own to go there. Obviously this is very different from in the game, but Chika herself is quite different due to meeting Ashley a year ago, so… it's similar in a way to the fact that Karin got entangled in Arc 1 due to Ashley happening to mention that you can identify a magical girl by her ring, meaning that Karin realized immediately that Alina had contracted when she saw her in the hospital after her attempted suicide. Sometimes little changes can make a huge difference like that.

› the MR verse won't be put into jeopardy like in A New Beginning.

Well, yes, it certainly won't be put in jeopardy for that reason.

Farsight21 (chapter 112, Feb 18, 2024)

› Question, are we going to see any more magical girls organizations that exist outside Japan? Since now the app is out and Kyuubei can tell them about Kamihama? May serve as something Ashley didn't see coming.

Puella Care is clearly a magical girl organization that exists outside of Japan. It's not very common for magical girls to form organizations, however, so it would not be at all surprising if Puella Care is the only one of any note.

Whether or not other foreign organizations will spring up and make an appearance is as yet unknown, in that I've neither planned for them nor specifically planned to not make any.

JAGwin (chapter 112, Feb 20, 2024)

› Was this supposed to be "Magical Girls protect this world."?

No. The omission of "magical" in that sentence was intentional.

› *tilts head* Chiharu's name doesn't have an F in it. Was this supposed to be "an F where you'd expect an H"?

The old Portuguese Romanization¹ that I used for the Hiroe code transliterates は (which would be ha in Hepburn) as fa. This is probably reflective of sound changes in historical Japanese (ie, it used to be pronounce as fa but is now pronounced as ha), though it could also be put down to the Portuguese mishearing.

Chelsea already transliterated the transcription letter-for-letter into Roman letters before passing it to a university professor to interpret it into hiragana and kanji, so she presumably remembers seeing fa in there somewhere. So that's her reason for the guess.

Meanwhile Chiharu, being used to the Hiroe code, would have thus expected the rune for F to appear in her name as the third character, but instead (since she was looking at her soul gem ring), she saw the rune for H. Though she might not have thought of the F rune as being a representation of F.

So no, that's not an error. In short, the assumption was essentially that Chiharu expected an old, now non-standard transliteration rather than the modern, standard Hepburn transliteration.

¹ If you're interested or want to look it up, the romanization in question was published in 1603 in a dictionary titled Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam. It can also be found on Wikipedia (which is, naturally, where I myself found it).

› And as a general question that also applies to at least the previous chapter, why are you having the Tokimes and Mikoshiba refer to Japan as Nippon? Unless I'm mistaken, that's just the Japanese name for Japan, and from what I understand Shizuka at least uses an older name that the fan translations render as "the Land of the Rising Sun".

Nippon is an older pronunciation of the name. That's why. (The modern pronunciation is Nihon.) I haven't looked specifically at the name that is used in the source material – perhaps it's actually even older than Nippon. But I also felt that referring to it as "the land of the rising sun" everywhere was kinda awkward. So I went with something that still sounds dated without being such a mouthful.

For what it's worth, I also made them refer to it as Nippon in chapter 48, so at least I'm (mostly?) consistent. Maybe I missed an instance in a chapter where they didn't play a major role.

JAGwin (chapter 113, Apr 15, 2024)

› I'm not sure whether to file this under errors or thoughts, but either way, the Vatican are CATHOLIC. There are other denominations out there, and it's implied (possibly accidentally, possibly not) that Father Sakura was originally some form of Protestant.*

Yes, I'm assuming him to be Anglican, as you mentioned. Catholics are still Christian, though. It doesn't seem all that wild to guess that two denominations might agree on some particular thing.

› So Rika went ahead and asked Ren out. Huh. Not going to call this an error since this is more a difference in interpretation than a contradiction with canon, but my impression has always been that Rika (at least as of the last point in canon involving her that I'm aware of) isn't willing to take that step because she hasn't forgiven herself for her Wish.

I don't know about formally asking her out, given that Ren doesn't seem to be seeing it as a date in this case. But she's definitely seeking to spend time alone with Ren, at the very least. They probably grew closer due to the revelation about turning into witches as well, since both took it pretty badly (as seen in the first MR timeline in particular).

› What kind of car does Kosane have? Because there are at least six people (the original five plus Momo) aside from herself, and that's assuming I'm not forgetting someone, and in my experience, most cars don't have enough room for that many passengers.

That's actually a good point. While it's almost certainly possible to squeeze more than the official capacity into a car, in this case she'd probably have to take two trips if it's a typical small car. I guess everyone could just barely squeeze into a minivan.

For the record, you are forgetting several people. There should be ten of them in total.

› Regarding the Paola encounter, I'm not sure if this is an error or not since it depends on whether or not my understanding that Kyouko was one of the Magical Girls involved with that fight is correct, but it was established in MagiReco (I think it was either Summer Treasures or Swimsuit!Kyouko's MGS, probably both) that Kyouko can't swim.

Kyouko was involved in the fight. I'm aware that she's noted as being unable to swim (and not just in MagiReco – the fourth drama CD also states as much), but Ashley obviously didn't see the situation up close this time, so we can probably assume that Kyouko had some unspecified trouble during this encounter.

› Oh, for the love of- Chelsea, YOU NAME DROPPED HER TO KYUBEY! *reads on* Oh, FINALLY, you remember!

Her excuse is that she's used to thinking of Kosane by her full name, not just her given name.