Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It woke her up before she knew what was happening.

The room was still and silent. Nothing out of place. No nurse at the door. The machines were lit up as they were supposed to. But the curtains by the ajar window were waving too much for the gentle night breeze. Saki watched them tremble against the window pane for a moment more, and then there was a second crash.

It shook the ground in a way that even an earthquake couldn’t have managed, and nearly all at once the alarms started blaring, lights flashing on and off. There was a dull thudding in her temples and nausea swimming in her stomach, but there was also a strong urgency in the air that she couldn’t ignore. This was something unnatural, which also meant it was something serious. Saki peeled up the bandage on her arm, wincing as she tugged out her IV drip, before pressing the cloth back down over the bleeding. Another thud shook underneath her. It was time to go.

The hallways of the wing were strangely quiet, though Saki could hear footsteps and banging not too far away. Had she been too slow waking up? Maybe everyone else had already gone. It made sense, because if there was danger they couldn’t wait around for every single person. Saki took a breath, shivering.

It’s not scary.

Keeping one hand on the wall, Saki inched slowly towards the exit. It wasn’t too far. This was the third floor, but there was an emergency escape just thirty seconds away that led to the outside stairs. Except, when Saki turned the corner, it was full of dark purple flames. Smoke billowed up towards her.

It doesn’t hurt.

No, it was okay. There was another exit. It was- a distance, but she could make it. Well, she- had to make it. Saki gripped her phone in her hand as she headed back the other way, pressing her sleeve against her face. It was easy. Her brother told her once he ran up the stairs faster than her parents could get there on the elevator. So it couldn’t be that far. Besides, the nurses had to protect the younger children, the ones with the real problems. She could handle herself. They didn’t need to be troubled with her, she could- easily-

Saki leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath through the fabric. It made no sense, she’d barely walked at all. Normal people weren’t like this. Frustration and panic welled up inside her as she remained aware of the flames behind her, growing ever closer. This was pathetic. She was pathetic. It was so easy. It was so easy.

Saki pressed her eyes shut and tried to will away the pain. If her friends were here, what would they say…? Ichika would say…Ichika would say- 

“Saki, are you okay? Do you need to hold onto my arm?”

“No, I’m okay…” Saki raised her head, and kept moving forwards. And Shiho-

“We have to keep moving. I know it’s hard, but it’s too dangerous to stay here. You understand that, don’t you?”

“I understand.” Saki grit her teeth, setting her eyes on the stairwell. Honami-

“It’s okay, Saki! We’re all here with you. It’s only a little further, so don’t worry.”

“Only a little…” And she was clutching the railing, watching her feet go one step a time lower and lower. She wasn’t going to hold her friends back. She could catch up. They’d be waiting for her when she got there, so she had to hurry. There was no time to stop. The air felt so cold.

The downstairs hallway was full of people. The nurses were guiding the younger children out towards the door, voices gentle but firm. It was a full scale evacuation, then. Saki urged her legs to comply as she followed the crowds, using the wall to steady herself. It hurt, but there were surely people who needed help more than her. She just had to get out. To the cool outside air. 

I won’t get left behind.

She stumbled past the steps, out onto the courtyard. There were so many people and vehicles all around, the bright lights flashing from all angles. The purple flames rose up from the building behind her, not quite burning but not fully transparent either. And, of course, already there - the beautiful shining masked figure in the darkness. The glowing pink and bright radiance. Saki could watch them forever, even through the pain and the exhaustion. Magical girls. So brave and powerful. They were so…incredible.

Saki twisted her phone around in her hand, staring at the black screen. Of course there weren’t any messages. It was the middle of the night. The alerts were probably only just being sent out. So Saki sat back against the gravel and watched the staff work. It was only a little cold. Her body had felt worse, though she did miss the IV that had been slotted into her arm. 

The first message came through shortly after. Saki told her parents she was okay. They were coming out to the hospital, as much as she insisted otherwise. It was a weekday. They would have work in the morning, and the drive was long. The fire was starting to die down, but they were coming anyway. Another incident for them. Another problem caused by her.

But there’s nothing wrong.

A message from Ichika. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Don’t worry, I’m fine! It must have been really scary for the little kids, though.’

No reply after that. The other two hadn’t messaged at all. Obviously. They’d be asleep. They’d wait until the morning to check if she was okay. And that was good, because she didn’t want them to wake up for her sake.

My friends really care about me.

It was cold, though. She really wished she could go back inside. There were no stars in the sky tonight, whether that was from the smoke or the clouds. Honami might know, in the morning. She’d ask her.

I don’t feel alone at all.

Saki closed her eyes, her phone like ice in her hand.

I’m actually very lucky.

Her head hurt.

Things could be so much worse. 

What would her friends say, if they were by her side right now? Not over text, not through the phone, but sat on all sides of her. How would it feel if she was one of the little kids being wrapped in a blanket by a nurse, or part of the families holding hands by the steps? And if there was so much noise, how did it feel so quiet?

Saki let her eyes drift back to the magical girls standing on the roof, tracing their powerful silhouettes against the backdrop of the night. They probably never felt sad or afraid. They fought together as teams and were always there for one another. Every day was fun and different for them. Seeing them in action normally always cheered her up, no matter what.

So why did right now feel lonelier than ever?

And then the car was pulling up amongst the others, parking in a space that wasn’t for parking, the back door flying open before the engine was even off. The footsteps growing louder, the desperate thuds against the floor-

“Saki!”

“Tsukasa…?” 

Saki blinked her eyes awake. Her bedroom ceiling stared back at her, the cheery notes of her phone alarm muffled by her pillow. It was bright and warm. It was also twenty minutes later than it was supposed to be.

“Ah-!”

“Are you still asleep?” Tsukasa called through the door again as Saki flung herself up, hurrying to grab her clothes from the closet.

“I’m not asleep!” Saki yelled back, fumbling with her blouse buttons. “I was just- listening to music! I’m coming now!”

This had to be a new record, tossing on her uniform in about thirty seconds flat. Tsukasa was still waiting outside, his bright expression morphing into a frown at the sight of her opening the door.

“You overslept,” he said, crossing his arms. “What did I tell you about staying up late? It’s not good for your health!”

“No, I’ve been awake for ages!” Saki tried a casual smile as she fixed her collar, feeling half her hair still resting on her shoulder. “I just- thought I’d try a new style today. It’s kind of a trend to wear your hair half up half down now, don’t you know?”

“Huh, really?” Tsukasa’s face fell into stern concentration, as if he was learning something of grave importance. “I hadn’t heard of that…maybe I should try it sometime…I can’t have people thinking I’m out of touch with the latest fashion…”

“Right?” Saki let out a silent breath of relief. Thank goodness her brother was an idiot sometimes.

“What about the mismatched socks?” he asked, looking down. “Is that a trend too?”

“Huh?” Saki followed his stare, now realising one leg was navy blue and the other grey. “Ah, no way, I didn’t even notice-!”

“So you did oversleep!” 

“Not even that much…” Saki sulked, turning back to her room to retrieve the lonely sock from its place on the dresser. “It’s not like it was my fault, anyway…”

“What’s wrong?” Tsukasa’s voice turned a hint more serious. “Do you feel sick? Have you got a fever? Do you need me to check?”

“No, I’m fine,” Saki said, double checking herself in the mirror. “I just…stayed up a little too late.”

That was possibly an understatement. She’d gotten back late for reasons out of her control, and then five seconds before going to sleep, suddenly the biggest magical girl news of the week had dropped. No, not week. Month. Year, even! It had taken an hour of scrolling to even understand what had happened, and then people had started posting commentary, and theories, and videos that seemed to be legit but were actually just fakes…the time had just gotten away from her a little too easily. And then there was that bad dream again…

But despite the exhaustion, Saki was still itching to check her phone and see if there had been any new updates or actual confirmed footage of the event. Part of her was in denial that the whole thing had even happened, anyway. Because there was no way. There was absolutely no way, no plausible chance whatsoever, that More More Jump had been defeated. And by a Level0 force of all things? No way, no way.

“Well, there’s breakfast downstairs if you want it,” Tsukasa continued, moving away from her door. “But you better hurry if you don’t want to be late! It’s already half past.”

“Already?!” Saki hurried to tie her remaining hair up into its usual pigtail before rushing downstairs. She was about to step out with a piece of toast wedged firmly in her mouth, when Tsukasa’s voice boomed from behind her.

“If you’re going to eat, do it properly!!” he instructed, and Saki faltered with one hand on the door. “It’s not safe to run with food in your mouth. Didn’t you learn from last time?”

“Buh Rukaka…” Saki mumbled, then sighed, sitting down at the table. One time, it had only been one time she’d almost sort of kind of choked whilst running out the door, and now she apparently couldn’t be trusted at all. Some mistakes just couldn’t be lived down, it seemed.

But the tiredness still lingered even after she left the house, jumbled thoughts filling her head. Seriously, all four of them? In a single attack? That was practically unheard of, even for a Level3 monster. And this wasn’t just any team of four they were talking about- it was More More Jump! More Hope could practically defeat a Level0 herself with nothing but a stare. Saki refused to believe they’d all gone down. She tried to give her phone another look as she raced down the sidewalk, then quickly abandoned that idea when a passing car nearly collided with her. Okay, once she got to school. Then she’d figure this out.

has anyone got pics of last nighttttt i had to leave early so i couldnt catch the end of viviq’s fight :( :( :(
>dm’d u!! <3

MMJ WENT DOWN?????? WHAT????????????
>Nothing confirmed yet.
>yup i was there i saw it!! dk what it was tho….alerts said nothing bad was out last night so ??

js if mmj down then we all know harmony is 2 blame js js
>it’s always harmony lol
>she sucksssssss

Ok but i was out for a bit last night (not by whatever happened with MMJ sorry) and lol Star took a total L plz if anyone has vid i need it
>shes so funny i love her

I have a picture of the medic team out around Shibuya last night aprox 11pm. Didn’t see any of the More More Jump team but pretty safe to assume this has something to do with them as nobody else was patrolling nearby

“Saki? Are you listening?”

“Huh?” Saki flinched away from squinting at a grainy image of a white vehicle to see her friends staring at her, faces in varying degrees of concern. Shiho’s was the scariest. Shiho’s was always the scariest. “Um, yeah! You were just talking about the…charity concert, right?”

“Specifically what about the concert?” Shiho questioned, eyes sharp like a teacher. Saki pressed her lips together.

“...That it’s gonna be really fun…?”

“If you can’t concentrate, there’s no point having this conversation,” Shiho said, crossing her arms. “You’ve barely even touched your lunch.”

“I’m definitely paying attention!” Saki said, then shoved a whole rice ball into her mouth. “And ‘m deffly eaahing my humch!”

“What are you looking at?” Honami leaned in next to her on the bench, tilting her head at the phone. “Oh, magical girl news…?”

“Something really bad happened last night!” Saki said, swallowing. “I mean. Maybe. But I am paying attention, I promise! I just slept badly last night. Can you just, um…repeat what you were saying?”

At least Shiho’s eye roll was only a quick one. “I think we should reevaluate our current set list to see if that’s where our problem lies. Specifically, I think we need to change the last song in the set to something more upbeat. Maybe it’s the abrupt shift in atmosphere that’s making things feel off.”

“But we’ve never had a problem with the order before, right…?” Honami said. “I was thinking there was something wrong with the songs themselves…”

“You mean we need to practise more?” Ichika asked.

“Well, I’m not really sure…”

“Oh, that reminds me!” Saki sat up. “I managed to get a new cable, so maybe we should just try rehearsing now that any potential output issues are sorted? I mean, yeah, those other things are important, but maybe it’s just a simple fix like that?”

“Maybe,” Shiho said. “But I’m not convinced that’s the issue. There’s just something about our current set that feels…off.”

“I’m sure we’ll figure it out before the concert,” Saki said, trying to keep her eyes off her phone. “And, well, even if we’re not perfect, it’s for charity, right? I’m sure people will have fun even if we’re a little rough around the edges!”

“Any event should be taken just as seriously as the next,” Shiho said. “An audience is still an audience.”

“Mm, I get your point…” There was a new post at the top of the page. Saki blinked. “No way, the fight was over in less than five minutes-?!”

“Aren’t you too old to still care about magical girls?” Shiho gave her a look. “I’ve honestly gotten a little sick of hearing about them all the time.”

“You can’t say that!” Saki exclaimed. “Who else is going to protect the city? And besides, the outfits are really cute! Don’t you think that’s worth at least some attention?”

Shiho’s returned a low smile. “Is that all you care about…?”

“I don’t mind them,” Honami said lightly. “I think it’s fun sometimes when I see them outside my house! There was one very nice girl who once helped find my brother when he got lost on the way back from the store.”

“I like them too,” Ichika said. “They’re really sweet, sometimes. I saw a girl the other day helping some little kids cross the street.”

“And that’s an integral part of our society?” Shiho asked.

“W-well, you don’t know what was actually going on,” Saki attempted. “Maybe there was some evil crossing-the-street monster and they were just making sure nobody fell into its trap!”

Shiho stared. “A ‘crossing-the-street monster’…?” 

“All I’m saying is they’re important!” Saki said, flushing. “And even if you don’t care, you can’t deny it’s not big news that one of the biggest teams apparently went down last night. Even More Love!”

“Even more what…?” Ichika looked lost. Saki had clearly failed her friends if they couldn’t even recognise the names of a star magical girl team.

“More Love! She was the one who put out that fi- I mean- she’s a hero I look up to a lot! And she's super powerful, she stays on her feet for pretty much any attack! There’s only been like, two times where anyone got a picture of her actually taking a fall, even back when she was still fighting alone!”

“I’m sure they’ll all be fine,” Shiho muttered. “So are we still okay to rehearse after school today? Saki, you said you might have something on.”

“Ah, yeah.” Saki put her phone away. “Sorry, it turns out my coworker can’t make it after all, so they need me to cover. Um, it’s just until half seven though, if you wanna practise after…?”

“That’s okay, Saki,” Ichika said with a smile. “You don’t need to force yourself.”

“It’s not forcing myself!” Saki said. “Actually, I was thinking maybe I could try coming up with some new songs before the concert? That could be the thing we need, you know!”

“Oh, but there’s not really very long to go…” Honami’s eyebrows dipped. “And you’ve been busy lately, so we wouldn’t want to ask too much of you.”

“It’s fine, I enjoy it!”

“Don’t worry, Saki,” Ichika said. “We’ll figure it out together, okay? All of us will work to find the solution.”

In other words, they didn’t want her to find one by herself. Saki tried a smile, because they were just trying to be considerate and there was nothing wrong with that, but- it still felt a little like they didn’t trust her. Every time she sneezed or every time she mentioned it was hot, there was always that hint of something behind their eyes. But it had been almost a year since her last admission to hospital. Was that not enough? Why could they never seem to believe she was okay? How could she convince them not to worry so much?

But it was a nice thing. It was a good thing, so she wasn’t going to linger on it. That wouldn’t be fair, because her friends were good people and they cared about her a lot. Saki repeated that to herself as she made her way to the cafe, determined to get into a good headspace before starting work. Today was just hard because she was still tired. It was just weird because of all the social media stuff.

Well, as much as it felt like a very Not Ordinary day to Saki, the population of the city apparently didn’t feel the same. Everyone to ever exist had seemingly decided that today was a day they wanted a coffee, or a slice of cake but with the icing taken off because they were a diet, or one drink with plant milk, another with normal milk, another with no milk, another with normal milk but just a little bit because last time it was way too weak-

Saki sighed heavily as she made her way down the street after her shift, glancing at the time on her phone reading nearly eight o’clock. Seriously, it wasn’t just the lack of sleep…today was just a pain. There was probably no point messaging Tsukasa to tell him she’d be home late, since he usually wasn’t back from rehearsal by this time anyway. At least he kept himself busy enough that he wasn’t constantly fussed about her whereabouts nowadays. The first few weeks after she’d gotten home from the hospital, he didn’t even want her going out after dark. Well, of course, he was just looking out for her safety, but…

Her hand hovered over his name, but before she could make a decision, there was a sharp buzz from her phone and a small message popped up over the screen. Monster energy detected nearby! Danger level: 0! Please take care in surrounding areas!

Saki stared at the circle overlaying the map of the area she was currently in. Probably only a five minute walk. And just a Level0? No, it was too late, and she was tired. Today had lasted too long and it would be best if she just went home as intended. The easy way. The normal way. Saki glanced at her phone, then stopped under a streetlight.

But today had lasted too long. It had been an annoying day. And she ignored an alert the other day because of band practice, and it had been a while since the one before that. It wasn’t that bad, right? She’d studied all day and done a busy shift so it was only natural that she gave herself a little treat at the end of the day, right?

Saki pursed her lips, then smiled, tapping back to Tsukasa’s name.

‘sorry, work is really busy today so i’ll be a little late getting back!! i’ll see you later :)’

It wouldn’t take that long. Saki tucked her phone away and headed to a side street, checking there was nobody around and no cameras in sight before she reached into her bag and grabbed the keychain hidden amongst her books. It was definitely a lot easier to locate now it was attached to something else. So many times she had rummaged around for the pendant for far too long before remembering it was in her pocket…but she had it now, so there was no time to waste. Saki held the star above her head, letting the petals fall as the energy engulfed her. As soon as the light faded, Saki took off down the street, grinning to herself.

It was actually kind of lucky, getting a Level0 so close to where she was. Usually they were so far away that by the time she got there the threat had already been dealt with, and she was always desperate for a chance to practise in actual combat. There was only so much swinging her tennis racket around her room that she could take- and only so much her possessions could manage too. So tonight would be fun!

Saki rounded the corner, rechecking her phone. Seemed like something was on top of the parking garage…maybe more than one? Oh, but there was already a magical girl here, standing at the building’s entrance. Saki ran over.

“Wow, you got here really fast!” she said, smiling at the girl. She didn’t smile back. “Um, were you waiting for someone? If your team isn’t here yet, I can help out if you want? I dunno how useful I’ll be though, haha!”

“No…” the girl said, her voice almost pained as she stared ahead. “I feel so…I don’t think I should go…”

“It’s okay, it’s just a Level0, right?” Saki tried a comforting grin, but it seemed to fall flat. “Is this your first fight? I know it’s scary, but the zero’s are really nothing to be afraid of. It’s no worse than finding a cockroach in your room! Honestly, sometimes I think the cockroaches are worse!”

“...I’m sorry,” the girl said, shaking her head and taking a step back. “I just can’t do it…”

“O-oh, well, um- I’ll go ahead then?” Saki reached up to summon her hammer, casting a cautious glance back as she ran ahead. The girl was still stuck in place, head towards the ground. Well, forcing her probably wouldn’t do anything, and she didn’t seem in the right headspace to fight anyway. It could be a big adjustment to get used to, so Saki could kind of understand the hesitation. Her first encounter, she’d been gripping her hammer so hard that she completely missed when it came time to attack. A couple nice older girls had finished it off for her. Humiliating, sure, but everyone had to start somewhere…

But even though it had only been a couple months since then, she’d collected enough Level0 and even Level1 defeats to leave those kinds of fears behind. Part of her was sure she could handle something even greater than those, but they were hard to find and she didn’t mind the extra practice. Saki headed to the roof, taking a moment to pause outside the door. The alert hadn’t given her any actual information about what state the monster was in, so it was probably better to figure that out first before she got drenched in slime or something equally gross. That was a mistake she’d only make once, she’d sworn.

Saki peered out from behind the doorway, readying herself for something creepy or gross, but- as far as she could see, there was nothing but a thin sheen of black across the floor, rippling like some kind of sheer fabric. She’d seen something like this before, but usually things made of shadow were more- tangible. They formed shapes of four legged creatures or snakes, not just- void. 

Well, it didn’t really make a difference either way. Saki prepared her hammer, twisting the dial on the base to increase its power. The actual mechanisms of her weapon were still mostly unknown to her, but from what she’d tried so far, it seemed pretty similar to the dials on her keyboard. Higher volume meant higher attack. And this thing seemed pretty big, so something loud was probably a good idea. There wasn’t really any weak spot she could see, so it was probably best just to go for the middle-

Is this really okay for me to do?

Saki paused, smile faltering for a moment. Why was she thinking that all of a sudden? That wasn’t…that wasn’t what was important right now. She readied herself again, drawing her hammer back. Hopefully one hit would be enough. The shockwave might dissipate it in one go. That would be fun to see.

I’m lying to my brother.

She…must’ve been tired. But it was okay. This would be a quick fight, and then she would go home and rest. Be where she said she was.

I’m lying to my friends.

Saki shook her head, taking a deep breath. Then she ran forwards, slamming her hammer down against the shadow. And-

It went right through.

Ah.

There was a loud burst of notes as the hammer made contact with the concrete, and Saki yelped as the force threw her up into the air, way, way way way higher than she had been anticipating. Bad, bad, this was super bad- she was practically flying up into the air, clutching the handle of the hammer as if it could somehow function as a witch’s broom. Except, not- she couldn’t fly, the hammer couldn’t fly, and she was speeding away from any and all ground, watching the view of the roof shrink beneath her. 

Am I going to die???? Saki thought desperately as she managed to turn her body around to see the city far below her. No, it was probably fine, she’d already figured out she had greater damage resistance in her transformed state. Well, that was stuff like tripping over and recoil damage, not literally being thrown from a five-story building. And, as much as she was moving forwards, she was also starting to move down. Quickly. Very quickly. No, I can’t die. I have homework due tomorrow. There’s band practice. Shiho would be so mad if I missed twice in a row. And to a Level0? No way, that’s too embarrassing, no way, I could never live that down-!

Saki readjusted her grip on the hammer, concentrating hard on the bright lights beneath her. This area was a lot more lit up than the rest of the city had been, vibrant pinks and oranges glowing from every corner. Wait, this was the amusement park, wasn’t it? If only she could be lucky enough to land in the bounce house- but there wasn’t enough time to figure out where that was. In maybe ten or five seconds, she was going to splattered against the ground like a bug on a windscreen. Uh oh, her brother better not still be here- what time was it now, had their rehearsal already ended, he might’ve already gone home, hopefully there was nobody around to see her-

The outline of the stage grew closer, and Saki held her hammer for all she was worth, struggling to pull it back against the wind around her. Just like in tennis, she had to strike at the right moment. It was like hitting a ball, except the ball was actually a building and her racket was a hammer and she was also the racket kind of sort of oh god she really hoped this worked-

There was a crash as the weight made contact with the roof, and in the split second Saki was able to look, it miraculously seemed there was no one else around, because yikes that did more damage than she expected- oh right, the dial was still- and then she was being thrown back again, but somewhat slower this time. Saki scrambled around, trying to use the lowered speed to find somewhere to land. It seemed safe enough, and she really didn’t feel like batting herself back and forth like some kind of demented pinball game. The fan accounts on social media would really have a field day if they caught sight of that.

But there was a beacon of safety in the sky. A solid, stable place to land that was far more aligned with her current latitude than the ground. The ferris wheel-! That was a good idea, right? It had to be because she really didn’t have much else at this point. Saki twisted again, holding her arms behind her and letting her hammer dissipate into the air as she changed direction. Please let this work because as much as dying at a theme park would be really fun it would also be kind of really awful like they would probably have to shut it down at least for a little bit and the fish coaster is way too fun to let something like that happen-

Saki stretched her hands out, and- her fingers wrapped around the bars, swinging her wildly for a moment in a way that made her head spin violently, but then- she stopped. Hanging about two hundred feet above the ground, but- still. Not moving. Alive. Saki waited for a few tense seconds to see if death was going to catch up with her, and then let out a hard exhale, pulling herself up. 

Easy. That was easy. So easy. It had hardly even been a big deal at all. She totally wasn’t about to pass out. Definitely not trembling violently as she sat down against the top of the carriage. Just another day in the life. But thank god that it hadn’t been moving. If it had been earlier in the day, she might’ve ended up completely missing the bar, or getting electrocuted, or who knew what else. 

Actually. Saki glanced down at the park below. She was pretty high up. Very high up. How…how was she supposed to get down. The ferris wheel wasn’t moving. There was no way to climb down and she was pretty sure she didn’t have free-falling abilities. So, basically, in other words. She was stuck.

Saki leaned back, letting out a hard sigh.

Today was seriously so super no good at all-!

-

Somewhere in a different part of the city, Tsukasa was finishing for the day.

It was already past dark, he was realising now as he searched for a side street away from any bright lights. Not good. He didn’t like to make a habit of staying out late. Saving the city was important, but so was attaining proper sleep and ensuring he was well rested for his shows, both as a fighter and an actor. He stepped into a small alleyway, waving away his staff and letting the magical energy leave his body. Maybe if Saki was already home, he could just explain his absence by saying that rehearsal overran…or maybe that he had stopped by a restaurant with the others on the way home…no, but that was still lying, and ideally he didn’t want to…

That line of thought was lost as Tsukasa turned around, freezing at the pair of eyes that were staring at him from the top of the alley. Familiar eyes. The bright blue eyes of his dear sister’s friend Mochizuki Honami, more specifically. Ah. Ahhhh.

Silence.

This was- not good. Not ideal. He could hope for a moment that she might’ve not seen him thirty seconds ago, but their eye contact had lasted far longer than normal circumstances would decree. Tsukasa set his jaw. Improvise, improvise! No dead air on stage!

“...That was for a show,” was the best his mind threw at him after a few more seconds passed. Honami’s expression didn’t change as she nodded.

“...I see,” she responded shortly.

Tsukasa waited for her to leave, or for himself to make the move to leave, but there was no movement from either of them. Well, at least she was alone. No Saki beside her, just a paper bag draped around her wrist. Late night shopping, maybe. Should he ask? Make light conversation to shift away from the tension? She wasn’t questioning his explanation, so maybe he had succeeded in-

“Um,” Honami spoke up again, soft voice clearly nervous. “You’re bleeding.”

“Huh?!” Tsukasa flinched, then swerved his head around to glance at the sore spot on his arm. True to Honami’s words, there was a light patch of blood soaking through his jacket, the red visible even in the dim light. “Crap, I can’t go home like this! I mean- don’t tell Saki-! No, not that there’s anything you need to not tell her since I’m not hiding anything! This is all for the sake of the performance, okay?!”

“O-okay!” Honami straightened her back, blinking rapidly. Then her face shifted back into concern. “Um, but if you want, I could treat that for you…or at least wrap it up so it stops bleeding…”

“You can?” Tsukasa nodded. “Right, you work part time as a personal carer!”

“It’s more of a housekeeping duty, but more or less.” Her smile still seemed anxious, and Tsukasa frowned.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, it’s just…um…” Honami shifted in place, looking almost apologetic. “The good news is that your cut probably isn’t very deep…! And the bad news is that, well, Shiho and Ichika are waiting just around the corner…and they both also saw you- um, saw a- magical girl- jump into this alleyway.”

Ahhhhhhhh.

“...And Saki?”

“No, Saki isn’t with us tonight.”

Okay, at least he’d avoided that issue. And maybe there was a chance that Shiho and Ichika wouldn’t figure it out. He could just re-transform and leave this place safely with Honami as the only witness-

“You have got to be kidding me,” a dry voice said from the top of the alley, and Tsukasa felt himself drop another thousand feet into the depths. The stunned faces of Ichika and Shiho stared back at him, and Honami’s smile turned slightly strained as the silence set in again. Things had come to a crashing halt, and Tsukasa wasn’t sure he had the line he needed to fix them. And- that was simply the thrill of live theatre-

-but right now, he was kind of screwed.

Chapter Text

There was no such thing as an impossible situation. No such thing as a dead end. With enough determination and spirit, there was always a way out. Saki knew that. Saki was sure of that. But. That didn’t mean it wasn’t also incredibly embarrassing and awkward to get out of said situations.

Saki stared at the sea of lights below her as she held her phone to her ear, legs dangling off the edge of the carriage. It was actually very pretty from up here. Had she ever been on the ferris wheel at night? So many colours, so many twinkling stars. She wondered if they’d be lit like that all night, or if everything would go dark once the park shut down for the evening. And exactly what time did that happen, again…? It couldn’t be too far off, based on the time she’d seen the phone alert. Saki shivered at the thought of being left alone here overnight, trapped at the top with nothing but her phone.

“Hm? Saki? What’s up!”

“Emu!” The relief was palpable as she heard her friend’s voice, and Saki had to catch herself before she relaxed too far back and toppled over the other side. “Hi, um! I hope you’re doing well. Did you, um- already finish rehearsal for today?”

“Yeah, we’re just leaving now! Why?”

“Is my brother with you…?”

“Oh, no, sorry! Tsukasa left early…”

Safe! “Then, could I actually ask you to do me a small favour? It’s kind of a funny story…”

Not that there was a good way to say ‘I’m kinda stuck on top of the ferris wheel and it would be really super awesome if you could come and let me down because otherwise I’ll have to call the emergency rescue team and that would be a very big very humiliating ordeal that might have serious repercussions on my magical girl career though I’m not a magical girl and just ended up here by a really funny set of particular circumstances’- but Saki did her best. Well, Emu was the kind of person that didn’t ask questions. If she told anyone about it, they’d probably just think it was a story from a show or something. Lucky, so lucky.

Saki gripped onto the sides of the carriage as she felt the attraction spring back to life, slowly making its way back to the ground. Maybe this day wasn’t so bad after all! She’d just tell Emu her thanks, promise to give her some chocolate in gratitude, and then hurry home. Easy! No stress.

Except, as the carriage lowered further, Saki realised that Emu was not alone. Standing beside her were the other two members of her brother’s troupe. Saki didn’t know them quite as well, but she was sure they were probably the type of people who would ask questions. Obviously. That was kind of understandable, considering the situation.

“Saki!” Emu called as she reached safe ground, waving up to her with a grin. “Are you okay? Did you enjoy the ride?”

“Ah, yeah, it was super fun!” Saki said. “Sorry about that! I hope you guys didn’t have to walk too far to help me out.”

“You were really at the top,” Rui said with a thoughtful expression, and Saki stiffened, because she was pretty sure he was the smart one. Isn’t that what Tsukasa had said? The type to get good grades without even studying. “How exactly did that happen?”

Yeah, probably the excuse of ‘I just somehow ended up here!’ that she’d used on Emu wasn’t going to cut it here. “...I was…practising parkour?”

Something in his face softened. “I see.”

“All the way up there?” Emu gasped. “Wow, Saki, that’s amazing! You must be like a super ultra pro or something! I don’t think even I could climb that high! Oh, but I’ve never tried.”

“Please don’t get any ideas…” Nene murmured from beside her, glancing at Saki before quickly looking away again.

“Anyway, thanks so much for that, but I really have to head home now!” Saki said, attempting her best ‘everything’s fine’ grin. “Thanks everyone! See you later-”

“Ah, please wait,” Rui cut in, and Saki froze mid-wave. Had she been sussed out-? “You appear a little hurt. We have a first aid station not too far from here, if you’d like any help.”

“Oh, that’s okay-” A couple minor scrapes and cuts were peppered across her arms. She hadn’t even noticed until now. “This is nothing!”

“Don’t worry, Saki!” Emu grabbed her hand, already pulling her along. “We have a bunch of really fun bandaids that you can pick from! One of every single colour!”

“Oh, really, every single colour-?” Saki shook her head, refocusing. “No, but I need to get home…!”

“Sorry, but I think Tsukasa would kill us if we let you go home without making sure you were okay…” Nene said, and Saki attempted a smile.

“Could you maybe…not tell him I was here?”

“Why not?” Emu asked, picking up her pace. “Oh, it’s right here, Saki! Here, I’ll show you my favourite ones, they have little balloon animals all over them!”

“Seriously, I’m fine! You don’t have to…”

Still, she wasn’t sure she really had the energy to fight as she was pushed down to a seat by the computer monitor, Emu starting to dig through a first aid kit hidden under the desk. It felt a little wrong to be in an employees only area like this. And this was probably where they brought little kids who fell over or got sick on rides…there was something kind of humbling about that. Tenma Saki, once again in the patient’s chair.

“These ones are pretty popular too,” Emu kept saying, showing her a strip of bandaids with small cartoon cats on them. “I remember when I was a kid, my sister used to say ‘keep still or we’ll have to call the nyanmbulance’!”

“Make sure you use the wipes first,” Nene told Emu, all of them apparently ignoring that Saki could very easily do this herself. “Hey, Rui, what’re you doing?”

“Ah, nothing,” Rui said, sitting over by a set of small screens, one hand on the mouse. “I just wanted to check the security cameras to see if anything strange had happened.”

“The security cameras-?” Saki sat up sharply, causing Emu to jump away from her arm. “Um- that’s- I don’t think you need to look at that! Like I said, I was just doing- normal stuff, so-!”

“It looked like something caused quite a lot of damage to the Wonder Stage…” Rui said, flicking through footage which very clearly showed a magical girl’s figure flying into- and subsequently destroying- a large section of the stage.

“That was your stage? Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I’ll fix it up, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise and it was all just kind of happening all at once and-” Wait. Hang on. She was saying too much. Rui’s expression hadn’t changed, but the other two were looking at her with wide eyes. Saki buried her head in her hands, pressing her eyes shut. “I’m sorry…please don’t tell anyone…ahhh, why did this have to happen…today is so seriously awful…”

So many months being so careful and meticulous…so many late nights and training sessions…all ruined because of one stupid mistake. And fighting a Level0 of all things! At this point she hardly even deserved to be a magical girl.

There was a hand on her shoulder, and Saki looked up to see Emu’s understanding smile. “It’s okay, Saki! We won’t tell anyone! Absolute maximum security promise!”

“Well, I can’t say it’s entirely unexpected,” Rui said. “But yes, don’t worry. We’ll keep your secret safe.”

“You really thought we would believe you were doing parkour…?” Nene said with a small smile, and Saki laughed weakly.

“There’s not really much you can say to explain ending up in a place like that…” she said, watching as Emu pressed the final bandaid against a tiny scratch on her arm. Definitely overkill. They would probably be healed by tomorrow, but the designs were very cute.

“How did you end up in a place like that?” Rui asked. “Or maybe I should ask, how did you end up crashing into our stage at such speed?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain…” Saki said, fidgeting her hands together. “But really, I’m so super sorry about that! I’ll absolutely repair any damages, I promise! I don’t know how to use a drill but I can learn! I’ll find a way, believe me!”

“That’s okay, it’s nothing we can’t handle ourselves,” Rui said. “We already do routine maintenance every month or so anyway. Repairing any wear and tear is just part of our duties.”

“But that’s different to fixing a giant hole in the side!” Saki protested. “There’s no way you can repair all that yourselves! And it’ll cost the park money…and you guys won’t be able to perform until then…oh no…”

“No, Rui is really good at fixing stuff!” Emu assured her. “One time I dropped a bowling ball on the stage and he had it repaired by the next day!”

“Huh? A bowling ball?” Saki asked. “Why?”

“I thought it would be a good prop! But as it turns out, it’s too heavy!”

“Yes, our stage has definitely seen worse,” Rui said, and Nene shivered as if reliving painful memories.

“The confetti cannon incident…” she muttered.

“That was fun!” Emu cheered. “We went bambamcrack and then everything was wooooosh!”

“Oh, I think I remember that!” Saki said. “Tsukasa was bringing home confetti for weeks! Sometimes I still find it in random places around the house…”

“My apologies.” Rui chuckled lightly, and Emu giggled behind him.

“Wait, actually, that reminds me-” Saki grabbed her phone, dismayed to see it only had a couple of percent left. “Ahh, I need to call my brother and tell him that I’m on my way home! He’s going to get super worried if I’m not there, and you guys said he already left so he’s probably almost home by now! But I don’t even know what to say…”

“How about I try ringing him from my phone?” Rui suggested. “We can say we ran into you on our way back. That way he’ll at least know you’re safe.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea! He won’t worry if he knows I’m with you guys!”

“Does Tsukasa not know about your magic, Saki?” Emu asked, tilting her head. “That must be really hard to hide!”

“Sometimes, yeah…” She tried not to think about the long list of lies that had stacked up over the past few months. “But I figured it’s just- better this way, you know?”

“Ah, yeah, I guess Tsukasa wouldn’t be very good at keeping a secret,” Nene said. “Though now we have Emu to worry about too…”

“I’m really good at keeping secrets! I never even told anyone that it was my older brother who ate all the frosting off our Halloween cake!”

“Like a locked box,” Nene said.

“Okay, I’ll give Tsukasa a call,” Rui said, holding up his phone. “Emu, I believe in you to stay quiet, okay? But, failing that - Nene, I’m relying on you.”

Nene nodded firmly. “Understood.”

Saki held her breath as the ringing started, standing up from the chair to get closer to the phone. It was taking an unusually long amount of time for him to pick up, and Saki almost started to get worried for her brother’s safety, before-

“R-Rui?” Tsukasa’s spoke, and Saki let out a silent sigh of relief. “What is it? Did I leave something at the stage again?”

“Ah, no. I’m actually ringing on Saki’s behalf. She’s with us right now.”

“Hi, Tsukasa!” Saki called, trying her best to sound natural and calm.

“We ran into each other on the way home, but her phone died so she couldn’t tell you she would be late,” Rui explained easily. “I offered to call you so you know she’s safe and on her way back.”

“Oh! Okay. Thank you, Rui! Is everything okay, Saki?”

“Yeah, I was just gonna stop by the convenience store on the way home!” Saki added. Did that sound like a lie? “Did you- want me to get you anything?”

Actually, why was she offering that? If he said yes it would be a pain since then she would actually have to go…but he didn’t usually ask for anything, so it was probably a safe bet to help make her lie more believable-

“Yes, uh-!” Tsukasa said. “I need- jam…?”

“Huh? Jam?”

“Yes. Jam. That’s what I need.”

“...Why?”

“I was…thinking about making a cake,” he said, and Saki swore she could hear something in the background. Maybe he was still on his way home?

“Um, okay. I’ll get you some…jam.” She glanced at Rui, who just shrugged. “I’ll see you later, okay? Don’t wait up for me!”

“Hold up! Saki, if your boss is asking you to stay too late, make sure you tell him it’s not okay! Don’t let them overwork you, okay?”

“I know, Tsukasa!”

“And don’t take any weird shortcuts on the way back! Stay in well lit areas!”

“I know, I know…what kind of weird shortcuts are you talking about, anyway…”

“Don’t worry, Tsukasa!” Emu called. “We’ll take good care of Saki! I already made sure all her cuts are-”

Nene quickly wrapped her hand around Emu’s mouth, muffling the rest of the sentence.

“Hm? What did you say?” Tsukasa’s voice crackled, and Rui swiftly took the call off speaker.

“Then, we’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, finishing up the call smoothly before Emu could escape Nene’s hold. Saki let out a hard sigh, slumping forwards.

“I guess I have to stop by the store on the way home now…” she said, then turned to bow to the others. “But seriously, thank you guys so much! You really saved me tonight! I’ll absolutely make it up to you!”

“Will you be okay getting home?” Rui asked, tucking his phone away. “It’s quite dark outside.”

“Of course!” Saki smiled. “I’m not actually hurt, just kind of tired.” And embarrassed…

“And Saki is a magical girl, so she doesn’t have to worry about anything scary!” Emu said with a grin, breaking free from Nene. “You can just bambambam them with your weapon!”

“Yup, that’s me! Just- bambambaming all day long.” Saki readjusted her sleeves, making sure to hide all evidence of Emu’s work. “I’ll be fine, I promise! It’s not even a long walk.”

Or, it wouldn’t be, if she didn’t have to stop by the convenience store to pick up a jar of jam for her brother. Seriously. He didn’t even say which type he wanted! Strawberry was probably fine. And as much as it was annoying, at least it made her look more credible. Much easier to lie about going to the store when she had actual evidence of going to the store.

By the time she got home, Saki was more than ready to fully collapse into bed, all social media and group chats forgotten. She took off her shoes by the door, looking up to see Tsukasa standing in the middle of the room, poised as if he’d been midstep.

“Hm? Tsukasa?”

“Oh, Saki!” He swivelled around, hands on his hips. “I was just checking to see if you were home! And you are! Ha ha ha!”

Phew, he didn’t seem to suspect anything. “Yup! Sorry about being late! I got your stuff though, hopefully it’s the right kind…”

“My stuff?” Tsukasa stared blankly, then nodded vigorously. “Of course! Yes. The thing that I asked for! Thank you. It’s a good thing you had Rui and the others to walk home with. It’s a little dangerous outside tonight.”

“It’s no different to any other night,” Saki said, placing her bag at the door. If only he knew she walked herself home. Or- literally everything else. Oh gosh, now she had to hide the fact that all his friends knew her hidden identity as well as everything else. This was seriously getting out of hand. Soon every other conversation she had with him was going to be fake. Though, as bad as it felt, it was still a lot better than the alternative.

“Just make sure you stay safe!” Tsukasa said, nodding at her. “That’s the most important thing.”

“You worry too much, Tsukasa,” Saki said, and smiled towards the floor.

-

Curse the consequences of his own actions…curse them so much…

Though, even as his hand tightened with frustration around the whisk, Tsukasa was still sure the mix was turning out well. Of course it was; he’d made dozens of cakes and other desserts over the course of his life, but- there was usually at least a reason. Something to celebrate! This wasn’t inconspicuous at all. The batter slapped the side of the bowl as he stirred faster, frown deepening.

He hadn’t really meant to say it. It was just- temporary panic, a moment of being blindsided as he’d sat letting Honami wrap up his arm. Nothing he couldn’t handle himself, but it would be rude to reject assistance offered by his sister’s beloved friends, and there was no denying it was definitely easier than doing it himself one-handed. They hadn’t asked too many questions, which had been slightly awkward, but also a small blessing, because he was still undecided on how he wanted to answer them.

Yet, that also left the situation in dire uncertainty. The three of them knew his secret. Saki’s best friends knew his secret. That meant they were probably going to tell Saki. And that absolutely could not happen! No, maybe there was still an excuse he could use to lead them away from what they saw- what they thought they saw…though, lying to his sister’s friends was also bad. It was all bad. There had to be a way out! Tenma Tsukasa would not be defeated by a scenario like this!

Letting the whisk fall to one side, Tsukasa grabbed his phone from the side.

Saki! Are you with your friends today?

The reply didn’t take too long. no we already finished rehearsal! im at work now ^^

Tsukasa poured the batter into the tin, evening out the top with the spatula. Perfect. He could still fix this. It was the weekend so the other girls were likely still at the studio. He would just hurry on over and tell them that they had misunderstood, that he was hiding nothing from the world, and that he was entirely dependent and fully trustable person-

Or, he would do that in twenty to thirty minutes, after the top of the cake had turned golden brown. First things first, first things first. But as soon as it was ready, he would clear his name! There was nothing to worry about.

Tsukasa had passed by the rehearsal studio a number of times, but had never actually been inside. He’d never really had a reason to, until today. He paid no mind to the look the receptionist gave him as he walked in, nor to anyone who noticed him peering through the glass panels in the doors to try and find his sister’s group. Luckily it didn’t take too long to find them, and Tsukasa straightened his back as he knocked twice firmly, politely.

The door opened slowly, Honami’s bemused face appearing behind it. “Huh? Tsukasa…? Oh, why do you have a cake…?”

“I need to talk to you! And it’s not about magical girl stuff!” It was about magical girl stuff.

He could feel their eyes all on him as he entered the room, probably stunned to be graced with his presence so unexpectedly. At least he seemed to have caught them during a break. He set the cake down on the table, taking a seat beside. They appeared to be waiting for him to speak.

“So,” he started, keeping his expression firm and deliberate as he prepared to lie. “I believe there’s been a misunderstanding.”

“You’re a magical girl,” Shiho said.

“...Yes.” But he really hated lying.

“That’s amazing,” Ichika said, letting her guitar hang down as she looked up with wide eyes. “And Saki doesn’t know…?”

“...No.”

“Is that even possible?” Shiho asked, raising an eyebrow. “I can’t imagine you managing to keep a secret from the people within a hundred mile radius of you, let alone the person you live with.”

“I’m trying my best!” Tsukasa said. “It takes a lot of hard work and effort to make sure my sister doesn’t get mixed up in any of this!”

“It’s certainly a surprise…” Honami said. “But, um, I hope your arm is doing okay…”

“No, it’s nothing! It doesn’t hurt at all!” It wasn’t a lie if it was mostly true. “More importantly- I need to ask that you absolutely do not tell Saki or anyone else about this! Unless- she already knows?”

“We haven’t told her,” Shiho said. “We wouldn’t just go around blurting out sensitive information like that.”

“But how long have you been hiding this?” Ichika asked. “I don’t think Saki suspects anything. She’s never mentioned any suspicious behaviour.”

“Of course! I’m a star actor, I know exactly how to- present things in an alternate reality. I’ve already been at this for almost a year, which, if you’ve ever seen any of my fan videos, you’ll be well aware of-”

“Fan videos?” Shiho cut in. “You have fans?”

“Of course I do. I’m a star. Star.”

“Uh, I heard you. You don’t have to say it twice.”

“No, that’s my alias! Well, my full name is Shining Bright Sparkling Star, but they said there was a character limit on name applications…” Tsukasa frowned. “I was originally hoping to take the alias of Pegasus, but apparently that was ‘too obvious’, for whatever reason...”

“Of all the people to be a magical girl…” Shiho said, shaking her head. “What emotion would even inspire that?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Tsukasa held his head high, placing one hand by his forehead. “The desire to become a star, of course!”

“That’s…certainly a unique reason,” Honami said with a smile. “I suppose your own friend group must already know?”

“Well, no, I haven’t quite managed to-” Tsukasa lost the rest of that sentence as his phone buzzed, the familiar vibration pulling all his thoughts away. That could only mean-

Monster energy detected nearby! Danger level: 1! Please take care in surrounding areas!

“My bad, there’s something I have to take care of!” Tsukasa said, standing up briskly with one hand already in his pocket. “You should probably stay here, it might not be safe outside.”

“Huh, there’s a creature outside?” Honami seemed startled, and her and Ichika watched with wide eyes as he transformed. Shiho appeared somewhat- pained, for whatever reason. Was she that concerned for his safety? It was very touching.

Still, he really wished they wouldn’t accompany him as he ran out of the building towards the highlighted area on his phone. Something so close to his sister’s rehearsal space…it was definitely a good thing she wasn’t here right now.

He’d only just turned around the back of the building when he saw a gloopy creature looming up against the wall, lurking near one of the dumpsters. Instantly he stopped, taking a moment to properly survey his surroundings.

“Ah, it seems like he knows what he’s doing,” Honami’s voice said from behind him. “He’s being very careful.”

“Right, since he must be pretty experienced by now,” Ichika said. “I’ve never seen a magical girl fight in person before…I mean, not up close like this…”

Tsukasa spun around, staring at the others. “This is bad.”

“Huh?” Ichika swallowed. “Is it- too powerful for you?”

“No,” Tsukasa said. “I don’t think there are any cameras here.”

“...Cameras?” Honami repeated.

“Well, it’s not so bad,” Tsuaksa muttered to himself, turning around just in time to see the creature devour half of the trash can. “A live audience is just as good, if not better! Okay, everyone! Watch and see how a true pro fights! Soaring Star Blast!”

“Oh, he has attack names…”

It would have looked amazing, would have been a true sight to the eyes, if not for the fact that as soon as the blast made contact with the monster, it opened its mouth and swallowed the attack whole. It seemed to swell slightly in size, before returning to its descent down the alleyway.

“Oh, it ate it,” Honami said.

“Was that on purpose?” Ichika asked.

“How is that possible?” Tsukasa cried, clutching his staff. “Nothing can defeat my Soaring Star Blast!”

“Have you really been doing this a year?” Shiho asked. “You should know not to aim for the face on these kinds of creatures. And to actually assess the situation first.”

“I assessed it just fine! I’ll just try another attack-!” Tsukasa raised his staff again, making sure to twist it with added flair this time. No way he could let his sister’s friends think he was unskilled. He let the blast loose, trying to aim towards the bottom of the creature instead, but it was hard to aim properly from so close up. The mouth opened again, and its size further increased.

“Why would you do the exact same thing?” Shiho asked from behind him.

“It’s hard to get a good angle!” He frowned, looking behind for a better vantage spot. There wasn’t even anything to stand on. “Anyway, I already told you, it’s too dangerous for you to be here! You should find a place to wait inside where it’s safe, it’ll be better if I can handle this alone-”

There was a hiss, and Tsukasa turned around to see the monster stuck in place, as if something was hurting it. For a moment he thought that he’d been right after all and his attacks had just had a delayed effect, but then he noticed a curve of shadow towards the floor, a twisting strand of black curling up towards the monster. Was that- an additional power? Could it be morphing into something else? Tsukasa raised his weapon again.

“Wait!” Shiho’s voice was sharp, urgent. “Don’t attack that. That’s- something different.”

“Different?” Tsukasa watched the strand again, something almost like an octopus tentacle, or- as terrible as it was to think, the antenna of a bug. He held back a grimace. No, it was just a normal monster, a simple Level1 that he had to defeat for the sake of the city, because he was a magical girl, and that was his sworn duty!

Still, there was something strange about the situation that made him pause and watch. Something about it was really creepy…just looking at it was sending an uncomfortable shiver down his spine. Tsukasa suddenly felt irresponsible for letting the other three follow him here. He should’ve tried harder. Should’ve stopped them.

“Is that the same monster…?” Honami asked quietly.

“But it looks different,” Ichika said. “Isn’t the way it moves kind of...weird?”

But they were already here, so it was too late to worry about what-ifs. Standing here worrying wouldn’t do anything! Tsukasa held up his staff, firing towards the newcomer monster instead. It was probably better to take out the weaker entities first so he could focus properly on the main issue.

“Wait, you shouldn’t-” Shiho started, but the light was already spiralling from his staff. It didn’t quite hit the target, but instead blasted a hole through the larger monster, which now had its back to them. It dissipated instantly into wisps, and Tsukasa nodded. Improv, scripted. It was all intentional in some way.

“And now for the finale!” But he wasn’t going to miss this time. Tsukasa spun his staff again, striking one of his top ten poses. “Twisting Star Spiral!”

It was a definite hit, but instead of melting the enemy, it simply seemed to stun it, as if hit with a rolled up newspaper and not a blast of magic energy. Strange. Before Tsukasa could prepare another attack, it recoiled backwards, slinking off behind the edge of the building. He kept his stance, waiting, but it didn’t reappear. When he checked, the message on his phone had disappeared too.

Which meant- another anticlimactic finish. Maybe Tsukasa needed to revise the production of a beautiful ending. Though, those were just his own feelings. The most important opinions were those of his audience. Tsukasa spun around, watching the others’ faces carefully.

“That was…” Honami started.

“Sort of…” Ichika continued.

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Shiho finished. Tsukasa frowned.

“What do you mean? I was victorious!”

“That doesn’t count as a win by any means,” she said. Hm, she was certainly the hardest to impress, Tsukasa knew that. Well, he had managed to win Nene over and she had equally high standards. Everyone had their own pace.

“It must be difficult,” Ichika said with a small smile, almost sympathetic. That was, of course, completely erroneous in its direction towards him. “Having to deal with those things all the time…especially if you don’t have any teammates yet.”

“Hm, this shining Star fights alone!” Tsukasa said. “I’m a lone wolf, a cool and mysterious figure who fights evil by night and stuns audiences by day!”

“Stuns audiences, right,” Shiho said. 

“Ah, so you’re understanding the appeal now!”

“Um, we should probably head back inside before anyone comes to see what’s going on…” Honami said.

“Right, it could cause a commotion if a crowd were to gather to see me…” Tsukasa nodded, letting his staff fade away as he turned back towards the building.

“Aren’t you going to change back?” Ichika asked, and Tsukasa blinked.

“Why would I do that? Isn’t it better if I stay on guard in case anything else happens?” He paused. “Unless- is my presence too distracting? You don’t have to worry about that, for as stunning as I appear, it’s still just me underneath!”

“Yeah, that’s…that’s the problem,” Shiho said, sighing as they walked back to the rehearsal room. It was troublesome, but Tsukasa let himself fade back into his civilian self. No less remarkable, obviously, but perhaps more recognisable to his sister’s dear friends. Speaking of which- they still had much to discuss.

“I need to ensure that me- having this kind of ‘role’ is kept secret from Saki,” he said, leaning against a table to face the room. “The life of a hero, as thrilling as it may be, is also exceedingly dangerous. It would be extremely irresponsible for me to get my dear sister involved in this troublesome lifestyle.”

“But Saki really loves magical girls,” Ichika said. “I think she would be really excited to find out her brother was one.”

“Which is exactly why she can’t know! What if she followed me to a mission or was subject to an attack?” Tsukasa shook his head. “As her older brother, I can’t let that happen. Especially with everything that’s been going on recently…”

The defeat of a highly established team, the influx of reports and continually increasing danger levels…Tsukasa had already decided long ago that this was a burden to bear alone. As fantastical as it was, it was simply too risky to involve anyone he cared deeply about. Even having Saki’s friends aware of his situation was a dilemma, but there was sadly no helping it at this point. 

“I guess I understand what you mean…” Honami said, staring at the empty space set up for a keyboard. “Saki already has so much going on…it would be unfair to give her something else to worry about…”

“Exactly!” Tsukasa said. “You understand. Even more than putting on a wonderful show, the most important thing is to make sure Saki is safe!”

“How exactly are you planning on doing that?” Shiho asked. “You don’t even know how to fight.”

“Hm? I know exactly how to fight.”

“What’s your secondary power?” Shiho asked, her eyes scarily stern for someone a year his junior. “Do you know your weaknesses? Your strengths? And what about the range of your weapon? Do you know how to properly control it?”

“You…” Tsukasa stared in awe. “You’re extremely knowledgeable about magical girls! I wasn’t aware you were such a huge fan!”

“No, I’m not-”

“Then I’ll gladly be within your care!” Tsukasa said, standing up to bow. “Please educate me as best you can so I can continue to ensure Saki’s safety!”

“That’s not what I said…” Shiho said, and sighed in a way that Tsukasa knew from his experiences with Nene meant that she was agreeing. 

“I think it could be fun though,” Ichika said thoughtfully. “I’ve always been kind of curious about what magical girls do…even if this is kind of a different example…”

“I agree, but it does feel a little bad keeping it from Saki,” Honami said. “Well, I understand the reason…maybe we can tell her another time? Or if she asks…”

“I don’t think she’s going to ask a thing like that,” Shiho said, then eyed Tsukasa again. “Well, I don’t know exactly how this guy hides his identity with how loud his voice is…”

“I’m a star actor, of course! I never lie, only perform!”

“...Sure.” She crossed her arms and leaned back. “Anyway, if it’s for Saki’s sake, then fine, I’ll help. So long as you promise not to do anything stupid.”

“Of course,” Tsukasa said, and grinned. “I would never do anything like that.”

“Right…”

All three of them stared back at him with an air of uncertainty. They were kind to be worried about his safety, but he was sure it would be fine. After all, he’d made it this far. So long as he continued protecting his sister, everything would be fine.

Chapter Text

It was so much worse than she thought.

“Ahh, I can’t believe I did this…”  Saki murmured, standing helplessly whilst the other three easily manoeuvered the undamaged part of the stage. She’d been expecting a sizable dent against the wood, a couple broken planks and maybe half a torn curtain, not a stage that had basically collapsed on one side with only half a functioning roof. “I don’t think the DIY videos I watched are going to help…and I was so confident with the different drill settings too…!”

“Don’t worry, Saki!” Emu said, bouncing over to the front of the stage. None of them were in their stage uniforms today, which made sense, though Saki was still a little disappointed to not get to see any cute outfits. “My brother already ordered some more wood, and we’re gonna borrow Rui’s tools, so it should be fixed by next week!”

“That’s good, but-!” Saki frowned as she leaned over one of the debris piles, reaching out a hand tentatively. “Maybe I can attach some of these pieces back in the meantime? They’re only a little broken!”

“Please don’t worry about it,” Rui said, and Saki looked up. “It won’t be too difficult with the proper supplies. Also, if you touch those broken planks, you’re probably going to end up with quite a few nasty splinters.”

“Ah-” Saki pulled her hand back and stepped away. “B-but still, I feel really bad! Isn’t there anything else I can help with? You guys can’t perform at all with the stage in this state, right? That’s really bad!”

“It’s fine, we’re still in the process of adjusting our next show,” Rui said. “And since our next performance will be elsewhere, there’s not really any need for us to use the stage itself for rehearsals. We can make do with just this section when we need to.”

“Oh, right, you guys are gonna be at the charity event too! I remember Tsukasa mentioning it.” Saki noticed the non-destroyed segment of the stage was set up with various devices and wires that looked vaguely terrifying, even without knowledge of what any of them did. “Is all of this for just one show?!”

“We’re just testing things out for now,” Rui explained. “We’re…fine-tuning.”

“More like rewriting the script fifteen times a day.” Nene said, still lurking behind Rui in a way that blocked her from Saki’s view. “I mean, I get it, but this is the result of having two insane perfectionists in the group.”

“It’s a really sparkly play!” Emu said, grinning down at Saki. “It’s about flying and lights and feathers and at the end Tsukasa goes super super high all the way to the top of the stage! And also might possibly be on fire!”

“Huh? On fire?!”

“That’s yet to be decided,” Rui said, and Saki had to remind herself this type of thing was normal amongst theatre types. She wondered how Shiho would react if Saki suggested using fire in one of their performances. “Either way, until the script is fully completed, our rehearsals are going to be fairly limited. We’re just going to keep training in the meantime.”

“You guys really work hard, huh… “ It was somehow a comfort for her to think of Tsukasa dedicating his full efforts towards creating shows with his friends, meeting almost every day and always having something to work towards. That was how she felt with her band, after all. “I bet it’s gonna be real fun though! I can’t wait to see it.”

“Yeah! So don’t even worry about the stage! As long as there are people here having fun every day, then it’ll never be destroyed!” Emu turned around, grinning at the stage despite the mess. Almost as if on cue, another piece of wood broke off from where it had been hanging, crashing hard against the floor. Saki winced.

“I didn’t even have the dial turned up all the way…” she muttered, another spike of guilt stabbing her as she watched the others step away from the wreckage. “I never thought it would’ve been this bad…I should’ve tried to change my direction more, or at least remembered to turn my settings down…ahhh, I’m probably causing the same amount of damage as the things I’m trying to defeat!”

“You did come at it with quite a bit of speed,” Rui said, voice thoughtful. “Actually, I was meaning to ask about that now that we have a little more time to talk.”

Not that talking would do any good. Saki was sure she had already made the worst possible impression on her brother’s friends. So bad that she was honestly wondering if they might decide to ditch Tsukasa just because of how much trouble she had caused. Crashing into their stage, forcing them to take a week off work, asking them to protect her many secrets even from one of their closest friends…all the apology chocolate in the world wasn’t going to make up for this. 

“I can show you, but- don’t you need to rehearse?” she asked, frowning.

“I wanna see Saki go sparklesparkle!” Emu said, jumping down next to her despite the height of the stage. “We didn’t get to see it properly last time so I really really really want to see now!”

“Y-you don’t have to if you don’t want to, obviously…” Nene muttered, but Saki shook her head.

“That’s okay! I don’t mind.” It was just embarrassing, if anything. Though, in this kind of setting, it kind of felt like she was putting on a show of her own, even if she was the one sitting in the stalls. Saki grabbed her pendant and raised her hand, inviting the light to wash over her.

“Wow wow wow!” Emu gasped as the petals fell away and Saki found herself in her fighting uniform once more. “That’s such a cute outfit! Did you get to pick it yourself? Wah, and your hair is so pretty pink too! You look like candy floss! Or sakura! Candy floss sakura! Ahh, that sounds so tasty!”

“It is pretty cute, huh?” Scary as it was, it did feel kind of nice to be praised so openly. “I didn’t really choose it, but if I wanna change anything I just think about it and it sort of just- happens! I did get to choose my name, but I wasn’t sure what to pick so I just chose something simple.”

“I’ve seen this on videos, but never in person…” Rui watched with careful contemplation, one hand on his chin. “It’s amazing how a person’s appearance can change so quickly with just a single object as the trigger…I wonder if that could be useful in a show…? Though of course it would have to be a magical girl whose identity was already out in the open, and there aren’t many of those…”

“Tsukasa won’t be happy if you steal his sister for the sake of a show,” Nene warned him. “Especially if you’re still set on the fire idea.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do anything like that!” Rui smiled. “The fire is only for Tsukasa.”

“How long have you been a magical girl, Saki?” Emu asked, her eyes sparkling as she looked over Saki. “It must be so super fun!”

“Um, only a few months…! I’m still learning about how everything works and stuff…” 

“Do you have a team? Do you go out every night and fight all the spooky scary monsters and eat cakes?”

“No, I work alone!” Saki said with a light shrug. “I train by myself when I can, but I’m still pretty new to everything. That’s why I’m not very good with my hammer yet…”

Saki held up a hand, feeling the handle of her weapon drop into her palm a few seconds later. The way they were all staring at her was kind of embarrassing, even if it did make her a little happy. She could do this so easily now. They’d probably never guess it took her a solid three weeks just to figure out a consistent weapon recall. And it was still kind of slow compared to some girls she’d seen.

“It’s not as heavy as it looks!” she said, holding up the hammer. “And it has all these buttons on the side. I’m not super sure what all of them do yet, but from what I’ve tried, it seems to work pretty similar to my keyboard’s controls! Like, this is the dial I was talking about, it affects how strong the impact will be when I bring the hammer down, so I guess it’s kind of like the volume? And there’s like a weird sound shockwave thing too, but I’m not sure how strong that is…”

“Can I see?” Emu leaned forwards, and Saki glanced at the others, waiting for their ‘this isn’t a good place to practise combat’ comment, but there was nothing. 

“Well, the stage is already scheduled for repair,” Rui said, as if reading her thoughts. Right, these weren’t the same type of people as her friends. As if they would ever let her swing a giant hammer around for the sake of showing off. Well, they might, but not near any destructible items.

“I’ll set it super low!” Saki said, twisting the dial all the way to the bottom. “It’s kind of like a plush hammer when it’s set to this intensity.”

To demonstrate, Saki swung the hammer towards the ground, watching as it bounced off harmlessly with a quiet piano chord. This was pretty much a setting she only used when practising in her room.

“But it doesn’t change in weight?” Now Rui was joining them off the stage, tilting his head as he observed the weapon. “That’s really fascinating. I wonder what mechanisms it uses to adjust each setting? Is it purely magic or does it follow our own laws of physics? Hm, I would really love to take it apart and look inside…though there’s no opening compartments that I can see, but there’s bound to be a way around that…”

“Take it apart?” Saki clutched the hammer to her chest. “Please don’t! I don’t know if it can be put back together!”

“Hey, this isn’t Tsukasa, you can’t just go around dissecting her stuff,” Nene called from the stage, and Rui smiled sadly. 

“Well, eventually…”

“Anyway, I had the dial turned up too high the other day, and it caused a ton of knockback…” Saki said. “That’s how I ended up on the ferris wheel.”

“So you achieved that kind of height just from recoil?” Rui asked. “Interesting. Does that mean you have anti-gravitational powers?”

“Ah, no…” Though it probably would’ve saved her if she did… “I just kinda…fell? Sideways?”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“I’m pretty sure I’d notice if I could fly!” Saki laughed sheepishly. “No, it was just the momentum.”

“So the hammer can be adjusted for different strengths of attack?” Rui said, peering at the base of the weapon. “Have you tried testing them all?”

“No, I don’t have a lot of places to try them out and I’m worried they might be kind of destructive…” She tried not to think about the time she had nearly flung her bed across her room in her first month of figuring things out. She’d had about five seconds to de-transform and fling herself into a chair before Tsukasa had come running, thankfully taking her word when she asked him if he’d just felt the sudden earthquake. 

“Don’t worry!” Emu said. “If you don’t wanna bam the floor, we can toss things at you so you can hit them like donk and see how far they go! Whew wheew!”

“Is that a- good idea?”

“It could be a useful experiment,” Rui said. “We can use balloons so there's no risk of injury, and less chance of serious recoil.”

“You’re just going to throw stuff at her…?” Nene asked. Saki noticed she was still sitting safely on the stage, a good distance away from any magical weapons or projectiles.

“Yeah, Saki! Let’s try it!” Emu was already holding a balloon in her hands, positioned ready to go. Where did she get that so suddenly-?  “Start from zero! Try wibblewibble mode!”

“Oh- okay- right!” Saki rolled the dial down to the lowest setting, holding the hammer ready. Emu threw the balloon, and Saki swung her hammer. It was almost the same as a gust of air hitting it, and the balloon fell to the ground uselessly with a barely audible jumble of notes. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I expected…”

“Now twenty-five percent!”

“Okay!” Another balloon headed her way, and Saki swung again. This time she could actually feel something hit the hammer, and the balloon flew in a neat line towards the stage, where Nene easily grabbed it out of the air. “That seems pretty safe?”

“Halfway!!” Emu called, and Saki barely had time to adjust the settings before the balloon was in front of her again. This time it hit with more weight, similar to the feeling of hitting a ball with a baseball bat…if a baseball bat sounded like a piano. The balloon was about to fly up somewhere high, before Emu leapt up and plucked it out of the air with export precision. “Nice hit! Go go one hundred percent!”

“We’re just skipping seventy-five…?” Nene asked.

“Go go go, Saki!” With startling speed, Emu lobbed the final balloon her way, mirroring the stance of a star pitcher. Saki swung again, but before she’d even finished the movement, the balloon was long gone, soaring up in the air. They all watched it go, disappearing into the clouds. The hum of the piano chords still held strong in the air.

“Oohh.” Emu craned her head up, still positioned as if ready to jump. “It’s gone.”

“Very impressive,” Rui said. “I wonder if there’s any capability to improve the power past that level? We should try again with alterations to the other settings. Maybe do a full scale test with standardised measurements for speed and distance?”

“Is that not enough for you?” Nene asked, cradling the second balloon in her lap. “I don’t think there needs to be a stronger setting than that…”

“Yeah, I prefer to stick to the lower levels…” Saki said, turning the hammer back down before waving it away. “That’s what I thought I was on when I was out the other night.”

“So you were out fighting that night?” Emu asked with wide eyes. “Wow! I wanna see a video!”

“I’m not sure there’s any from that night…I mean, I don’t really have a fanbase anyway, since I’m still starting out! And people usually prefer to watch the groups, I think.” That, and magical girls who often took large and spectacular fails. Saki was always wary of falling into that category.

“That’s right,” Rui said, nodding. “There’s a very popular group operating in our city, isn’t there? But unfortunately they recently seem to have been taken out of commission.”

“Huh, you know about that?” Saki asked. Nene narrowed her eyes at him from the stage.

“Why do you know about that?” she asked. “I didn’t know you followed magical girl news.”

“No, I don’t really,” Rui said lightly. “It’s just within the past year or so I’ve started occasionally paying attention.”

“But yeah, it’s More More Jump, they’re super strong and super talented but everyone’s saying they got defeated last week! I really don’t want to believe it, but every new post I see makes it feel more real…”

“I haven’t looked into it too much, but it seems decently serious,” Rui said. “It’s not very common for an entire team to get taken out like that, is it?”

“Not just that, it’s super weird too!” Saki exclaimed. “Like, by a Level0? That makes no sense! They were the ones who took down that Level4 a couple years ago, and that was before they even officially had More Harmony to make them a group, so there’s no way all four of them would go down to something like that!”

“Could it have been an incorrect categorisation?” Rui suggested.

“I mean…maybe, but the app’s never been wrong before.” And that was kind of scary to think about, too. If the alerts on her phone couldn’t be trusted, then what would stop her running confidently into something she thought was Level0, only to be met with something way worse? “Well, I’m not gonna believe it ‘til I see it! More More Jump have tons of fans, so I’m sure if there really was something like that, someone would have a video of it!”

“I hope we get to see you fight, Saki!” Emu said. “I bet it’s so super fun!”

“Yeah, it is pretty fun!” she said. “But I’m really not that good yet! I’m kinda glad nobody takes videos of me, ‘cause I think it would be kind of embarrassing…if someone had footage from last week, I think I’d seriously die…”

“If you’d like, you’re free to practise here until the stage is fixed,” Rui offered. “This area of the park doesn’t have many visitors during the off hours, and Tsukasa always takes Thursdays off, so you would be free to do as you like.”

“Huh, he does? Wait, no-” Saki wondered if they’d maybe forgotten the extensive pile of rubble just to the side of them. “Isn’t that going to cause more problems for you…?”

“It’s no problem at all!” Emu said, eyes sparkling again. “You can come every single day if you want! Smash your hammer as much as you want! If Tsukasa comes we can just blindfold him!”

“Think about what you’re saying…” Nene muttered.

“I was also thinking that it might be helpful if I use my drones to get a scope of the city,” Rui continued. “I’ve heard several reports regarding unnatural phenomena in certain areas, so it might be useful to you to know where they are before you receive an alert on your phone. It wouldn’t be too difficult to set up.”

“You can really do that? That’s amazing!” Her brother definitely hadn’t been over exaggerating when she said Rui was smart. Still, thinking that he was going to give up his time just to help her when she couldn’t offer anything in return… “Is it really okay?”

“Of course,” Rui said, and smiled. “You’re an honorary member of our troupe, after all.”

“Super honorary!” Emu said, wrapping her into a hug. “Even if you weren’t Tsukasa’s little sister you’d still be a super important member because you’re my friend and you’re really nice and really fun! And now you’re a magical girl too, so you’re also honorary in that way too! That’s triple triple triple honorary!”

“Uh, how does that make any sense…?” Nene’s voice drifted out from behind.

“You don’t have to be alone, Saki!” Emu continued. “We’ll help you save the day!”

“W-well, I don’t know if I’m gonna be the one who saves it, but- yeah, if you guys are okay with it, it might not be so bad to have someone to help out!” After all, they hadn’t known her when she was younger. There was no memory of a helpless girl to cloud their impressions of her. Maybe she could just be- normal? Though, it was still kind of using them, and it was definitely still lying to her brother. Things just kept…piling up, huh.

“Of course we're okay with it,” Rui said. “We’ll do our best to support you as you need.”

There was something so weirdly soft in his expression, as if he knew something nobody else did. But he already knew her secret identity, so what else was there to know? Maybe equations and formulas and other scary things like that. Saki shook her head, refocusing. Well, if Tsukasa’s friends were wanting to help her, it would be kind of impolite to decline. Even if it was a little dangerous to spend so much time with the people closest to Tsukasa. Well, she would tell him eventually. Probably. Definitely. Just- not yet.

“Would you like to stay for rehearsal?” Rui asked, and Saki blinked away from those thoughts. “You’re welcome to sit and watch, if you’d like.”

“Oh…”  Well, her whereabouts was already covered for both her friends and her brother…and it wasn’t like she had anywhere she needed to be right now… “Then, okay!”

There was always something special about getting to see behind the scenes of a performance. Sometimes it was easy to forget just how much effort went into these things, especially when all her brother’s shows ran so flawlessly. It was like everyone was just having fun, no complicated stuff involved. Well, of course, it was the same with her friends too. It was fun, but so much hard work too. Saki tried to imagine her friends standing up on stage, scripts in hands. Maybe Shiho as the director? She could be good at that. Ichika as their star singer, Honami as the one keeping them all on pace. Or maybe she could be the director too? Not that any of it would ever happen, but it was fun to imagine.

Or, less fun, for this scene in particular, as it seemed. It was an argument scene, all three of them delivering lines tight with tension. Actually, no, this wouldn’t be good for her friends at all. It’d be- sad, even if it was just acting. She didn’t want them to fight. She didn’t want them to- feel bad.

But it was still just a play. The moment rehearsal was done, Emu was back to wrapping herself around Nene’s arm and Rui had his usual relaxed expression. It was kind of amazing to see them flip back to their normal personalities again after so long being in character. Tsukasa had always opted to play characters similar to his own temperament, so it wasn’t that difficult to adjust to seeing him switch back. Though, they had been when they were kids. She hadn’t seen that much of his performances with his troupe, as much as she wanted to. Things were just- busy.

A buzz from her phone. Three new notifications.

‘I want to practise our closing song again tomorrow. Saki, is that okay with you?’

‘Are you on your way home???? Make sure you stick to well-lit areas!!!! Ask the girls to walk back with you if you’re worried!!!!!!!’

‘Breaking: More More Jump confirmed to currently be in the care of medics...'

“Are you walking home alone?” 

Saki looked up to see Rui standing above her. She clicked her phone screen off and tried to appear upbeat.

“Yeah, it’s not too dark yet! I’m used to walking home later than this, anyway.” She stared at the stage again, the lights of the park still lit behind the trees. It was nice to see that Nene wasn’t as shy around Emu, the two of them talking next to the curtain. “What’s the play about? Um, other than flying and stuff! Like why were you guys arguing in that scene?”

“It’s about a hero who loses their powers and overcomes their past,” Rui said. “If you want, I can lend you a copy of the script. You’re free to offer any feedback if you have any.”

“Huh, really? Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Rui said, turning to collect his bag from beside the stage. “I hope all of this hasn’t been too overwhelming for you. I’m assuming we’re the first people who have become aware of your other identity.”

“Ah, yeah, pretty much…” Saki glanced towards her lap, then hesitantly looked back to Rui. “You’re- still not going to tell my brother, right? I know it’s really a lot to ask of you especially when you guys all spend so much time together, but, if it’s okay…!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Tsukasa,” Rui said, and Saki was relieved to hear the honesty in his voice. “The secret of one’s true identity is one that deserves to be treated with care and respect. It’s not something for someone else to tell. Though, that being said…would it be okay if I asked why you’re so disinclined to tell Tsukasa? I would’ve assumed you two to be very open with each other.”

“We are, it’s just…” Saki frowned. “I know it sounds selfish, but I just- don’t want him to worry. He’s already spent so much of his life having to deal with my problems, and even without all of this he’s constantly checking to see if I’m okay. If I told him I was going out fighting every night and getting involved with monster alerts, then…”

“I understand,” Rui said. “But please just know, you’re welcome to come to any of us at any time. You don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to be.”

A stack of paper was offered out to her, and Saki took it with both hands. A story about overcoming the past. A story performed by Tsukasa.

“Thank you,” Saki said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

-

A cold late night wind. The scattered lights of the city. A long drop below him. The life of a protector was so hard, yet so treasured. This was his calling, his purpose, his reason to stand here looking so cool and so composed, a person who was completely photogenic, an idol figure watching over the city below-

“Hey, can you see it yet?”

“It looks like he’s just standing there…”

“Is this part of some magical thing…?”

“Oi, don’t you understand the importance of a well timed silence?” Tsukasa said down the phone, frowning. “It’s the perfect moment for a riveting internal monologue!”

“No, we don’t need a monologue,” Shiho said. “We just need you to tell us how big the venue is.”

“I can’t help but feel like this is a waste of my talents…” Tsukasa stepped closer to the edge of the rooftop, peering across the darkness to try and get a better glimpse of the stage area. “Of course, I want to know too, but I can’t really tell. They might not have set up the space yet.”

“Hm. I thought so,” Shiho said. “You can’t get any closer? We only need a general idea.”

“I’m not going to use my powers to trespass! I’m supposed to be a model citizen! A person of outstanding conduct and respectability!” 

“Wow, I think I could hear that all the way from down here…” Honami’s voice said through the phone.

“Well, if you can’t see, you might as well come back down,” Shiho said. “There’s no point risking unnecessary attention standing around on rooftops if there’s nothing up there.”

“‘Unnecessary’…?” Tsukasa frowned to himself, walking along the edge of the building. He paused, glancing at a deflated balloon caught on the railings of the building. Wasn’t this from PXL? How did it get all the way up here…? His gaze lingered for a moment more before he continued walking, shrugging the thought off. They were pretty sturdy balloons, he supposed.

Anyway, as good a photo this view would probably make, there wasn’t really much of the venue visible from up here. If any of the stage had been set up yet, there was no sign of it. Just the very corner of some seating, and not much else. It was a very beautiful view, at least. The lights, the buildings, the shadows, and the shadows, and the…shadows-
“Hm-?”

“Are you coming?” Shiho’s voice distracted him away from the view. “Don’t tell us that you don’t know how to get down…”

“Of course I know how to get down! I have advanced damage resistance techniques!” 

Honami’s voice was muffled. “I-it’s not just jumping off, is it-” 

Tsukasa grabbed one hand against the railing, using force to propel himself over the side of the building and back down into the alleyway. Probably a nine out of ten, at least. It barely hurt that time. He spun around to face the others, who were slightly huddled against the wall. That made no sense. It wasn’t as if there had been any risk he would collide with them.

“I should’ve known…” Honami said, taking one hand away from her chest. “You seem very- confident in your abilities.”

“Well, of course.” Tsukasa put his hands on his hips, leaning back. “I learned that one from the stage! Anyway, it shouldn’t matter how big your audience is, so long as you put your all into it. Whether four or four thousand people, the most important thing is your passion!”

“That’s fine, except I want to know what the acoustics will be like,” Shiho said tiredly. She seemed stressed somehow. Was the prospect of the concert really worrying her that much? But Saki had always told him Shiho was the most professional of the group, the one never shaken by nerves.

“I get what you mean though,” Ichika said to him, readjusting the case on her shoulder. “And regardless of the turnout, I think it’ll be really fun to play at an outside venue again. It’s been a while since the last time we performed outside a live house.”

“Yes!” Tsukasa nodded vigorously, ponytail heavy behind him. “I’m looking forward to it! I’ll definitely be in the crowd!”

“But won’t you need to prepare for your own performance?” Honami asked.

“Ah, that’s true! No, it’s no problem. I’ll just cheer from backstage!”

“But don’t actually do that though,” Shiho said, looking distracted as she glanced at something on her phone. No, not distraction. Concern? Perhaps she was like Nene in more ways than one?

“Are you okay?” he asked her, and her face flashed with something unreadable as she looked up. “Don’t worry. I’m sure the audience will appreciate your hard work even if your acoustics aren’t perfect. If all else fails, you can just play as loud as you can!”

“No, it’s. Not that.” She crossed her arms, slipping her phone in her pocket before the others could ask. “Don’t you need to get home?”

Tsukasa gasped, staring up at a sky that was definitely very dark in a way he’d only just realised the significance of. “You’re right! Saki must be home right now. I can’t make her worry, that would be completely unforgivable of me…”

“I hope we’re not pressuring her to do too much,” Ichika said. “Lately it seems like she’s always busy…”

“Hm?” It wasn’t something he’d noticed himself, but maybe that was because he’d had less time to spend at home after he’d decided to take his hero work more seriously. Balancing being a star alongside being a saviour, and having to keep up his grades enough to not raise any questions… “No, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. If there was anything bothering Saki, she would tell me! We’re very open with each other.”

“Can you really still say that…?” Ichika said with a small smile.

“Hm?”

Tsukasa glanced down at himself, understanding dawning on him. No, this was simply a role he was playing. There were absolutely no troubles on his mind at all as he made his way home, pendant tucked safely back in his pocket. His sister was fine and there was certainly nothing at all bothering her-

“Why are you crying?!”

Tsukasa threw his bag to the side as he sprinted into the room and over to the couch where Saki was sitting, very clear tears visible on her cheeks as she looked up at him with wide eyes. There was something in her lap, but before Tsukasa could see what it was, she covered it with a cushion.

“Oh, you’re back already-?”

“What’s wrong?! What happened? Saki-!” He dropped down to his knees, searching for any sign of injury or distress. Had she been lonely, or did she feel sick, or maybe something bad happened at school, or she was upset because he was back late even though he texted her but maybe that wasn’t enough and he should’ve sent a follow up message and a phone call and a voicemail and a sticky note on the door-

“No, I just read something kinda emotional,” Saki said, then smiled with a shrug. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Oh…” Tsukasa leaned back, feeling his heart rate slow. It didn’t seem like she was lying. “Wh-what was it? Was it good?”

“It was really good!” She sniffed. “Just…sad.”

“Don’t tell me it was the one about the dog, and the train station…” No, he couldn’t think about it, or he’d start crying too-

“Not that one. I think Mom hid that one after last time.” Saki wiped her tears away. “It was just- something a friend gave me. I wasn’t going to read it all in one night, but I kinda got carried away.”

“Is it that one?” Tsukasa gestured at the page sticking out from under the cushion, and Saki jumped. “Why are you hiding it?”

“B-because if I show it to you, you’ll want to read it too, and you can’t read it, because it’s too sad!”

Tsukasa crossed his arms. “No, I’m sure I can handle it. I’m the responsible older brother, aren’t I? And if you talk about it like that then I’m definitely going to want to read it even more!”

“Last time the neighbours almost called the police! You were crying so loud!”

“I-I was method acting! The heartbreak of the characters simply inspired me to try my own!” This might be a conversation he was better off leaving. Tsukasa stood back up, relieved at least no tragedy had struck his sister today. Though of course it wouldn’t, with him patrolling the streets. It was like he said, he had nothing to fret about. Except maybe a sad story or two. That was okay.

“I thought you weren’t going to be back until eight,” Saki said, rubbing the last tears away from her eyes. “It’s your own fault for coming back early.”

“Hm?” Tsukasa rechecked the clock. “I’m not early. It’s already past eight, actually.”

“Huh, really?” Saki blinked, and there was something in her stare that was almost- troubling. No, it might not have been the way she was looking at him, but rather the way he knew he was looking at her. Was he an obvious liar? It suddenly seemed so obvious that he was shamefully hiding something from her, and he looked away at the same time she did.

“Maybe your shift finished earlier than you thought?” he tried.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure that was it! It was quiet today so we left a couple minutes early!” Saki laughed, and the tension disappeared just as quickly as it had emerged. There was no problem. He’d just been imagining things. “Well, sorry to make you worry anyway. It did make me cry, but it was a very sweet story too! I’m sure it’ll be even better when you- uh, when you read it too!”

“Oh, so I will get to, eventually?” Tsukasa nodded in approval. “Hm, yes. The best way to experience any work of art is a way you can share your emotions with others! Even if that emotion is crying!”

“What’re you talking about?” Saki laughed. Everything was completely okay.

Yet, the thought of the shadows plagued him as he headed up to his room, finally getting a chance to lay down on his bed. Could there be something out there? But he hadn’t had any alerts on his phone all night. Even the ones from yesterday were all low level. He grabbed his phone to recheck, finding instead unread messages from the group chat.

Can we try an off book run of the first half tomorrow? It might help once we see everything all together.

Two confirmation messages. Tsukasa hurried to add his own. No time to worry about something that might not even be an issue. He’d do a quick scan through the Star tag to see if there were any new mentions or photos, and then get back to work.

After all, he had lines to learn.

Chapter Text

“Okay!” Emu’s voice was bright as she called out across the rooftop, one hand in a firm salute on her forehead. “So the aim of the game is to not die!”

“Wait, I thought the aim was to avoid you?” Saki glanced back over her shoulder at the long drop behind, the distant figures of other students far below. 

“Yeah!” Emu repositioned herself into a low stance. “Ready?”

“Ready!” Saki steadied herself against the ground, eyes focused on Emu. There was a railing behind her, so it wasn’t like she was actually in any danger of falling off. But, then again- this was Emu. Saki had to be ready for anything, improbable as it seemed. 

“Spinning Spiral Fire Blast Attack!” 

And before Saki could even comprehend what that meant, there was a flash of pink hurtling towards her in a cross between a flip and a spring. Saki had only just enough time to dart to the side to avoid Emu’s foot coming in full contact with her face. Actually, it might have been a better idea to do this whilst she was transformed for the extra layer of protection-

“Twirling Twisting Pointy Spin Attack!”

It was too late for that thought. Saki jumped again, having to roll forwards onto the floor away from Emu’s outstretched arms. But then she was being dived at again, momentum still at full. Could normal people have this kind of speed? Was Emu a magical girl too? No, this was something else entirely. More than a black belt, more than an acrobat-

“Crushing Flying Soaring From-the-Sky Full Energy Springing Sneak Attack!”

“Wait, Emu-!” 

Saki tucked her head into her arms, huddled on the floor and readying herself for certain death. Just as she heard Emu’s shoes scrape against the ground, there was a click from over by the door, and Saki looked up to see Emu lose her balance at the interruption, toppling to one side with her arms still outstretched. So she would live another day. 

“Ah, so you were up here after all,” Ichika’s voice called from over by the door, and Saki perked up. “...Um, what’re you doing?”

“Training!” Emu replied with a grin.

Saki scrambled to her feet, brushing her skirt down. “Uh, yeah, training! Like, for a show! For Emu! Because Emu does shows! This is how theatre people train for shows!”

“Oh…” Ichika seemed a little confused, but thankfully didn’t question it any further. “Is it just you two? I thought Minori and the others usually had lunch up here.”

“Yeah, but I think she’s still off sick…”

“Poor Minori…” Emu made a dismayed face. “She must have really bad flu!”

“Oh yeah, I think I remember hearing about that,” Ichika said. “Um, I was going to see if you wanted to have lunch together, but it’s okay if you two are busy with other stuff…”

“No, we’re pretty much done!” Saki replied before Emu could suggest any more life threatening activities. “We can-”

“Ah-!” Emu quickly slammed her hand over her mouth, eyes wide as she stared down at something on the courtyard. It probably wasn’t visible to Ichika from where she was standing, but Saki could see the spot where Emu was looking, a long dark shadow sliding past the bushes and up the main path. Her phone buzzed silently in her pocket.

“A-actually, I just remembered that we have, a, uh-”

“Assignment!” Emu offered, and Saki nodded eagerly. “Lots and lots of homework!”

“Yeah! It’s due next period so we really have to get it done now.” Saki eyed her bag from where it was resting near the railings, desperate to grab her pendant. Their school surely had other magical girls, but there was no guarantee any of them were in places they could easily transform. That, and it seemed like it was taking longer for calls to be responded to recently. Maybe bad timing? Well, this one definitely fell into that category.

“I didn’t know we had any assignments for next lesson,” Ichika said, frowning slightly. 

“It’s- a really old one! That’s why it’s so important I hand it in today!”

“...Okay.” Was there something doubtful in her eyes as she looked away? Distrust? Hurt? Saki wished there was more she could say, something to make it feel a little less bad, but there was no time. The shadow was getting closer to the trees, near to where people were sitting. “Well, if you finish early, we’ll be in the yard.”

“Yeah.” Saki pressed her lips together, watching Ichika head back down the stairway. She’d apologise later. Come up with a better excuse. Even if that was- still an excuse.

“Saki, that’s a monster down there, right?” Emu exclaimed, gripping against the railing. “Like a real super scary super dangerous spooky mystical monster monster?”

“Pretty much…” Saki grabbed her star, feeling the points press against her fingers as the light washed over her. “But why would it just be in the school like this? It seems like a really bad place to be…” 

“Maybe he wants to learn Math too…?” Emu shook her head, face tightening in determination. “Saki! You go and whambambam the monster and I’ll make sure nobody sees, okay! Don’t worry, Tsukasa always says I’m really good at being distracting!”

“How do I get down?” Saki peered through the railings again. “Should I try scaling the building? Is that super dangerous?”

“I think it sounds super fun!” Emu said. “I’ll go down and make sure your friends absolutely definitely don’t see you at all! You have nothing to worry about! You dodged my super special spiral attack, so you must be super powerful and strong!”

“I hope so…” Saki threw one last look at the edge before nodding firmly at Emu, giving her the signal to leave. Even though she was so used to fighting alone, it still felt strangely lonely to watch Emu head back inside without her. Almost like she wanted to say ‘wait, don’t leave me here alone, I don’t know what I’m doing’, but- that was silly. It wasn’t like Emu could help fight a magical entity. It would be putting her in danger. It would be selfish.

Saki turned back to the railing, climbing up on the bench to help lift herself over. It was surprisingly easy to haul her body over the top despite the awkward angle; probably a side effect of being infused with magical energy? The darkness had made its way to the side of the building, blending in with the natural shadows against the wall. If she could catch it before it turned the corner, it wouldn’t have any interaction with her classmates. Saki took a breath, before letting herself drop down, managing to grip the window ledge just in time. Easy, no problem at all.

The shadow was still moving, and Saki grit her teeth as she let herself fall again. This would be so much easier if her weapon let her attack from a distance, but aside from tossing the entire hammer down there, there wasn’t really much she could do. And considering how badly she’d failed at her last fight, she wasn’t really feeling the idea of recklessly throwing her only chance of success off the side of a building. At least dropping down like this was making the ground approach much faster. She was only one floor from the bottom already.

Saki tightened her grip around the ledge as she stretched out her other hand, summoning her hammer into existence. The dial was still set to low - she was double checking this time - and Saki focused her gaze on the shadow below. If she could jump from here, she could attack it without it even seeing her. If- it could even see. No time to dwell on that. This time she was going to win-!

Except, obviously, in the two seconds it took for her to leave the ledge and hit the ground, the shadow moved. 

“Ah, jeez…” Saki bit her cheek as she watched it slink off around the corner. She ran to follow, but stopped at the side of the wall. Even more obviously, the direction it was headed was now the exact place her friends were sitting and eating lunch. “Seriously-?”

At least Emu was now running across the courtyard on the opposite side, moving at an insane speed despite her small size. Thinking about it now, it was kind of incredible that Emu had never actually injured her brother. He was clearly even tougher than she thought. But if Emu was there, that meant she had a good distraction to keep her friends busy whilst Saki took care of things. Emu was an actor, so she would definitely make an enticing, natural diversion-

“Um!” Emu skidded to a halt in front of the others, causing all three to look up at her. “Um! Um!”

“Emu?” Ichika sounded reasonably concerned. “Are…you okay?”

“Everyone!” Emu waved her hands around a couple times, and just as Saki was starting to think this was all the distraction was going to be, Emu straightened up. “Hi! What are you eating?”

“Um, lunch-?”

“Wait, Honami-! Your lunch is really cute!” Oh, she suddenly sounded genuinely interested. Of course, Honami’s lunches were always top tier. “Are those bears? Did you make rice ball bear friends? That’s so amazing wow wow wow!”

“No, it’s not really that hard…”

Okay, they definitely weren’t looking behind them, at least. Saki crept forwards carefully, keeping her hammer poised. It was harder to get a good angle than she would’ve expected, with the shadow moving at an uneven pace. She hit her hammer down again, a soft melody of notes spilling out, but the shadow withered away at the last second. Saki hissed.

“Hm, did you just hear something?” Ichika asked, and Saki froze as Ichika turned her head slightly. “It sounded like a-”

“I really need your opinion on something!” Emu blurted out, and Saki positioned herself back into an attack stance. No good, the heavy end of the hammer was too noisy. “So, um- do you think that a wolf or a bear would win in a fight!”

“Oh, well…” Ichika hummed. “Doesn’t that depend on the bear?”

“I was thinking the same thing!” Honami said. “Because some of them are much bigger than others! Something like a polar bear would be really difficult to defeat…”

“But a bear is usually always bigger than a wolf, right?”

“Oh, but don’t wolves usually live in packs? There might be more than one!”

“Sorry, what are we talking about right now?” Shiho cut in. “I thought you and Saki had an assignment to hand in.”

The shadow stopped again, and Saki held her breath as she inched forwards as quietly as she could manage. She was only a couple steps away from her friends, but then, so was the monster. A couple seconds more and it would be under Honami’s feet.

“We do! I mean, we did!” Emu’s eyes flickered towards Saki for a split second, and she started flapping her arms again. “Actually it was way way easier than I thought it was going to be, so we finished it right away!”

It wasn’t like they would know if they saw her- would they? In a public place like this, there was almost certainly another student taking a photo to upload to social media, but it wasn’t like that would be enough to reveal her identity. It wasn’t even a guarantee she was a Miyamasuzaka student. But somehow, the thought of her friends seeing her like this…

“So where is Saki now?” Shiho asked. “She didn’t want to join us?”

“She’s- in the bathroom?” Emu tried. “One of her hair ties broke?”

“I’m worried she might be upset with us,” Ichika said, and Saki faltered slightly. “It feels like lately she’s always busy with something that means she can’t spend time with us.”

“Do you think we’ve been pushing her too hard…?” Honami asked. “Sometimes it feels like I’m only saying the wrong thing…”

The shadow made another sudden movement, and Saki slammed the handle of her hammer down quickly. It didn’t go through the same way it had last time, but it didn’t cause the monster to vanish either. It was almost like it was- holding onto her hammer. Saki tried to pull back, dragging the shadow with her, but it was a difficult action to perform whilst still crouching low. 

“I heard something too,” Shiho said, and Saki was just able to duck down behind the tree as Shiho turned to look. Emu made a panicked yelp.

“I don’t think Saki is upset with you!” she said, voice much louder than before. “It was just really bad timing! Really really really bad timing!”

“But it was the same the other day too…” Honami said, and Saki struggled to retain her grip, the shadow straining to move in the opposite direction. This end wasn’t strong enough. It wasn’t damaging it at all. “I asked if she wanted to go to a cafe, but at the last second she said she couldn’t go. Maybe she really is just busy, but I’m worried she might be overworking herself…”

The shadow pulled again, and Saki dug her heels in, gloves gripping harder around the hammer. How could she have been so careless as to make her friends feel like that? They were worried for her sake, because of her own actions. It was her fault, but then, why not just- tell them-

“I don’t think that’s it at all!” Emu exclaimed, shaking her head. “Actually, the truth is that I forgot my homework so Saki had to help me, but she said that she really wanted to have lunch with you guys! And she feels really bad for missing practice the other day but she really does want to spend time with you. She doesn’t want you to feel worried because even though she’s doing a lot of things she’s still always doing her best! I’m sure she just feels bad because of how much she super super cares about you all!”

That was- true. Saki had no idea how Emu knew that but it was true. The shadow relented for a moment and Saki managed to yank her hammer back, ready to hit again. Everything was her fault, but she couldn't worry about that now. Instead, she lifted her weapon again, ripping a hole down the centre of the darkness. And this time, it fled back into the wall.

“Yay, you did it!” Emu cheered, then quickly corrected herself. “I mean- yay, that’s really good that you guys are- eating lunch! Eating lunch with friends is super yummy, right?”

Saki gave Emu a quick thumbs up before she ducked back behind the bushes, letting herself de-transform once there was nobody nearby. The alert on her phone had gone, and Saki absently pondered what level that one might have been. Another Level0? Either way, she was relieved she didn’t get to see what it was planning on doing to Honami. Saki waited for a few more seconds before emerging.

“But if you put the filling in too soon, then the entire thing will- oh, Saki, you’re back!” Emu waved at her as she ran over, only slightly breathless.

“Hi, sorry!” She grinned at her friends, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling that came with seeing how normal their faces all looked. If they looked so calm despite having just been so worried, then what else was she missing? “My hair tie broke so I just had to go get a new one out of my locker! But I’m here now! And I’m super looking forward to eating with you!”

“It’s just lunch,” Shiho said. “We’re nearly done anyway.”

“But it’s lunch with friends! That’s the best kind, right?”

“Right!” Emu nodded. “And now you can all enjoy it together! Thank you so much, Saki! You saved the day! Ah, because of my homework, I mean!”

“I don’t see why it’s such a big deal, but if you’re feeling better, then that’s good.” Shiho moved up to let Saki sit on the adjacent side as she waved Emu goodbye. 

“‘Feeling better’?” Saki tried not to dwell on that phrasing. “Anyway, I think we should absolutely definitely practice tomorrow night! I know I’ve been busy lately but I can one hundred percent join you guys tomorrow, and I’ve been doing my own practice by myself so I know I’m gonna be a total force to be reckoned with!”

“Well, that’s good, but.” Shiho closed the lid on her lunchbox, crossing her arms.  “Based on the current danger reports for the city, there’s a less-than-zero chance the concert is going to be cancelled. If that happens, there isn’t really anything we can do.”

“Oh no…” Were things really that bad? Surely it couldn’t just be because of More More Jump, could it? “But I’m sure things will be okay! Things would have to be really really serious before they cancelled an event that big, right? And I haven’t really heard anything, anyway.”

“Yeah, I don’t think the venue has made any official announcements,” Ichika said. “So for now I think we should just assume it’s going ahead.”

“Yeah! Let’s keep positive and play the best music we can!” Maybe easier said than done, but- they were friends, so it would be fine. They were sitting here together eating lunch. No more threats. Nothing wrong at all. 

“But I’ll definitely be looking to see if all your individual practice has paid off,” Shiho said, a calm challenge in her eyes. “I expect you to keep up just as much as anyone else.”

“Of course!” Terrifying, always terrifying. But still, she laughed with the other two, and tried not to think about it. There was a buzz from her phone and Saki felt her heart drop; not another alert-? But it was just a sticker from Emu of a bear giving her a thumbs up. And underneath-

IT’S OKAY TO TELL YOUR FRIENDS 😵‍😵‍ THINGS!!!!!
😔😔  👍 OKAY TOO!!!!!!!!

Saki wasn’t entirely sure how to interpret that. Did she mean tell them about her identity? Or- just…how she was feeling? Either way, that wasn’t something she wanted to say right now. For now, she was going to just keep smiling.

-

“A Level2 across the other side of the city, about thirty minutes ago…” Ichika read from her phone, holding it up so both her and Honami could see. “I think that’s the most recent one. A team took care of it. Oh, it was the same one who took down the one in that area this morning, too.”

“Oh, I feel bad for the girl in the middle,” Honami said, looking sadly at the phone. “She looks really tired.”

“Well, two alerts in one day is a lot,” Tsukasa said thoughtfully, leaning back against the wall, his notes laid out in front of him. “I’m pretty sure when I was starting out I only saw one every few days or so, and it was usually pretty low levelled. Most of the time it was already dealt with by the time I got there, regretfully so…”

“Apparently there were even some at three in the morning,” Ichika continued reading. “Is that normal? It must be hard to have to wake up in the middle of the night.”

“I don’t think I could do that,” Honami said. “I always thought being a magical girl must be a lot of fun, but I guess there are difficult parts in any job.”

“Of course! There’s no rest for a star like me!”

“Show me your weapon recall again,” Shiho instructed, taking a step back towards their instruments. Tsukasa threw up his arm in an instant, making sure to use a pose they hadn’t yet seen. It was always important to give the audience something new, lest they become bored. “Your grip is too awkward. If you were in the middle of a fight, you’d have to readjust, and those seconds could be very costly in the wrong moment.”

“Awkward?” Tsukasa looked at his hand. “But, this is the coolest way to do it.”

“Do you want to look cool or do you want to survive? Turn your hand the other way. It needs to be secure. The same way you would hold an instrument. Know where your fingers need to be.”

“I kind of get what you mean,” Honami said. “When I first started out, I was so focused on keeping a firm grip on my drumsticks so they wouldn’t slip away that I ended up kind of restricting myself too much in my movements. Once you trust that you’re not going to lose your grip, it becomes a lot easier!”

“And it’ll be easier not to lose your grip if you have your hand in the proper position,” Shiho said, then made a sudden grab for the middle of the staff. “See? I could take it off you easily.”

“D-do people often try and steal your instruments?” Tsukasa clutched his weapon close to him. “I should’ve appreciated more that Saki plays keyboard. Actually, speaking of Saki, wasn’t there an alert by your school the other day?”

“Hm? At our school?” Ichika looked up, frowning. “I don’t remember hearing anything about that.”

“If there was anything, it must have been dealt with quickly,” Shiho said, shrugging. “But that seems unlikely. Only high level entities attack public spaces, and those aren’t exactly easy to deal with.”

“But imagine if there was a high level attack at your school! How would I get there in time? I need to do more speed training...”

“You shouldn’t be attending high level attacks anyway,” Shiho said. “You’re not experienced enough.”

“You’re right,” Tsukasa said, then readied himself back into a fighting pose. “Okay! Shiho! Please kick me as hard as you can!”

“Um, excuse me? Is this how you usually train?”

“No, I don’t usually have anyone else to help me.”

“People really like recording videos of you, though,” Honami said, smiling as she kept scrolling. “There’s one of you here crashing into a bus stop that has almost ten thousand views!”

“...Hmm.” He’d have to decide later if that was a good or a bad thing.

“But even the ones where you’re not falling are pretty fun to watch,” Ichika said. “It reminds me of the cartoons I used to watch as a kid.”

“Let me see,” Shiho said, joining the other two in their immersion of the screen. “Hmm. Your form isn’t too bad at the start. It’s just everything after that’s not great.”

“Am I not your upperclassman? You should be praising me!”

“It’s a little bit cool!” Honami offered.

“Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t died yet,” Shiho said.

“...Thank you.” He’d take that. “Well, I’m not sure I really understand why or how, but you seem to be very informed on this, so I trust you! Please help me to improve so I can be the protector I’m destined to be!”

“Your voice is really loud…” Honami murmured.

“Did you only just notice?” Shiho asked flatly.

“No, I mean-!” She held up the phone, displaying a video from a couple months ago from a fight he was still mostly proud of. A couple dud lines, but mostly a pretty good performance. “You can hear it in this video even though it’s shot from pretty far away. It’s almost like it’s being projected through a microphone, but isn't really possible, right?"

“I don’t use any microphones when I fight,” Tsukasa said proudly. “This is just my natural projecting abilities!”

“That might be one of your other powers,” Shiho said. “I mean, it would make sense."

“Is that useful?” Honami asked. “I mean, I get the benefit of being able to jump from pretty high up, but I’m not really sure how being- loud would help.”

“It means my whole audience will hear me! Even those in the back will get the highest quality show possible!”

“Well, it’ll make it easier for the medics to find him,” Shiho said. “We should probably head back. Our allotted time is almost up.”

“I guess we didn’t really get much done again today…” Honami said with a sad smile, collecting her things from the table. “It’s pretty hard to rehearse without Saki…”

“Please don’t feel as though you have to sacrifice your rehearsals to help me!” Tsukasa said. “I was already working solo before this, so it’s no problem for me to remain alone.”

“It’s not that,” Shiho said. “Saki is just- busy.”

“Well, I can play in for her, if you need.”

“Oh.” Now all three of them were looking at him with stunned expressions, as if he’d just suggested forming a magical girl team together with them. Ichika was the first to recover.

“Well, I guess that could work. I kind of forgot you play piano too.”

“Well, we’ll see,” Shiho said, tugging her bass up on her shoulder. She took another glance at her phone before slotting it back into her pocket. No, there was definitely something difficult on her face. Similar to the kind of expression Nene got when she was nervous about a show. If they were alike in that regard, maybe she was also similarly reluctant to ask for help. In which case…

“Okay, then let’s-”

“Actually, Shiho!” He raised a hand to catch her attention. “Do you mind if I talk to you a bit more about fighting techniques? If you don’t have anywhere to be, I think it would be very useful for me to further improve my style!”

“It’s not like I know anything special,” she said. “Especially about your…style.”

“We can go ahead if you want,” Honami said with a smile. “I don’t think I can help much with knowing how to knock out monsters…”

“Please!” Tsukasa bowed, and Shiho sighed.

“Fine,” she said. “I don’t have anywhere urgent to be.”

There wasn’t really anywhere to sit outside of the studio, so they settled on just standing against the wall, looking out across the street. The moon was large, and Tsukasa watched it with contemplation. Were his friends rehearsing their lines right now? Was Saki already at home? Was everyone he knew safe right now?

“What did you want to ask?” Shiho pulled him away from his thoughts, and Tsukasa hummed.

“Are you still worried about the show?”

“...I thought you wanted to talk about training techniques,” Shiho said, a wary tone in her voice. “But no, I’m not worried. I told you that already.”

“Is it something to do with school?”

“Is what something to do with school?” Shiho eyed him. “If you don’t have any questions, I’m going home. I need to practice my solo parts some more.”

“Wait!” So she didn’t want to talk about it with him, that was fine. But there was still something he wanted to know. “Do you…ever worry about where your sister is?” 

“...What?” Her stony expression shifted into something more alarmed, more cautious.“What…does that mean?”

“I was wondering if it’s the same,” he said. “Even though she’s older than you. I always worry about where Saki is, but I never considered if she has the same concerns about me. Not that she would have any reason to worry about me, of course! But I would hate to make her worry. This is supposed to be for her protection, not causing her more trouble.”

A pause, and then Shiho let out a long sigh as she looked up at the sky. “So that’s what you meant. No, I don’t really worry about her. I mean, there are times I wish she knew how to use GPS, but. She’s capable. She has her friends.”

“That’s what I think too! But, sometimes I still…”

The muffled sounds of the rehearsal studio's music played through the walls behind him, and Tsukasa couldn’t help but feel somewhat comforted by the sound. It reminded him of being at home, hearing piano notes chiming up from below. An always welcome end to silence.

“...Are you going to keep this a secret from her forever?” Shiho asked after a moment.

“...I don’t want to. I shouldn’t. As her older brother, I should be honest and trustworthy. And it’s like you said! Saki has always admired magical girls, so of course she’d be enamoured to know her amazing older brother is one too!”

Shiho leaned back. “So why don’t you tell her?”

“Because it’s…dangerous.” He frowned. “I don’t want to burden her with this. Causing her trouble would be the worst thing I could do.”

Another beat of silence. “I don’t know if Saki worries about you or not. It wouldn’t be for me to say even if I did know. But…consider what would happen if something happened to you. Would you want her to know where you were? Would you want her to find out through someone else if you ended up in a bad situation?”

“No, but- I don’t think anything bad could happen. I’m a capable fighter, you know! Those other videos were just bad takes. I’ve made it this far.”

“Maybe,” Shiho said, and stared straight ahead to the moon. “But sometimes it doesn’t matter how strong you are. Things can go wrong anyway.”

Before he could think too much about that, there was a buzz from his pocket, and Tsukasa pulled out his phone to see the letters bold across his screen. Danger level: 3.

“Don’t go,” Shiho said.

“But I-”

“If you care about your friends and family then you won’t go,” she said, and there was a firmness in her voice that told him to listen. As irksome as it was to think about leaving potential danger out there- it was probably a good idea to leave this one to someone else. Tsukasa put his phone away.

“...Okay.”

It was only a little later than he’d intended to get home, but the house was already silent, the door echoing as he closed it behind him. Tsukasa wondered if maybe he was somehow the first one back, when he noticed Saki sitting on the couch.

“Ah, you’re-” He stopped. Asleep! She was asleep. Tsukasa lightened his footsteps as he crept over, noticing the half-finished homework resting in her lap. Her head was balanced on her hand, a pencil trapped in the crease of her book. He smiled, then frowned. Her face seemed distressed, even in sleep. A bad dream maybe? Tsukasa momentarily considered waking her, then stopped. She was probably tired. After all, she was always working so hard.

No. It wasn’t enough for him to be like this. Missing that call was wrong. Not because Shiho’s perception of him had been inaccurate, but rather because she was right. He was too weak. Too weak to protect his sister in the way he needed. Too weak to make sure she was okay. There was something wrong in the city, and he needed to be the one to stop it. For her sake. For his little sister.

Saki shifted as he draped the blanket on top of her, making sure the corners were set in a position where they wouldn’t fall. The frown on his sister’s face softened, relaxing just a little as she settled down against the cover.

Next time, he would go. Next time, he’d be better.

Chapter Text

So much darkness. No light to be seen. Everywhere she looked there was nothing. Just the endless darkness, stretching on forever-

“There’s a light switch, by the way.”

“Oh!” Saki blinked as the store cupboard lit up, revealing the many many boxes and cases all stacked on top of each other. Actually, this was scarier than it had been before. Saki tentatively stepped around a cardboard box labelled ‘DO NOT OPEN I’M SERIOUS THIS TIME RUI’. “It’s way bigger than I thought it would be in here!”

“Sorry about the mess. Things here tend to just be taken out as they’re needed.” Rui gave a pensive look at a set of Christmas lights that told Saki the word ‘needed’ was being used loosely. “Oh, I think the last box we need is down there. Everything else should already be on the stage.”

“Are these all from your past shows?” Saki eyed a strange looking mask sitting on top of a dusty cushion. “I’m not sure I saw this one…”

“Some of this has been here for far longer than we’ve been putting on shows,” Rui said, and smiled fondly. “I’d really love to give every prop its chance to shine eventually. Being here just inspires endless ideas, does it not?”

“It is pretty interesting!” Saki smiled at a fat lion plushie slumped over on top of a box, waving as she passed. “I wish we could use props like this for our concerts, but I’m not sure my bandmates would let me…”

“That’s a shame,” Rui said, and held the door for her. “But it must be a lot of fun putting on concerts with your friends. There’s a special kind of excitement that comes from creating music out of nothing. It’s not too dissimilar to creating a show, I’m sure.”

Everything here always came back to shows. Definitely the perfect environment for Tsukasa. Saki smiled to herself as she helped carry the box over to the stage, which was looking a lot better. Just a few areas that still needed a fresh coat of paint.

“So you’re going to be taking all of this stuff over to the event venue?” Saki gazed across all the boxes at the foot of the stage, losing count as she went. “Isn’t this too much?”

“Technically we could use the equipment provided by the venue, but…”

“He’s too picky for that,” Nene offered from her place on one of the benches, not looking up from her phone. 

“It kinda makes sense though,” Saki said. “It’s like hiring an instrument instead of using your own. Even if it’s the exact same model, something about it just feels super weird!”

“Ooh, I wanna see Saki play piano!” Emu exclaimed, bouncing up from next to Nene. “Wait wait wait, what if you played your hammer?! Because it has notes on it and it sounds like a piano!”

“I don’t think it works like that.” Saki laughed. “It would probably look really weird trying to use a hammer as a keyboard.”

“Have you been doing okay with everything?” Rui asked as they started to set up the stage. “There seemed to have been quite a lot of disturbances lately.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve been getting alerts like crazy the past few days! Half the time it’s when I’m in class or something, so I can’t even go.” Saki thought distastefully back to the other day when her phone had buzzed near non-stop through the better part of her Physics lesson. She’d had to shove it all the way to the bottom of her bag. “Don’t worry about that though! I’m doing fine. How has your show been going? I’m still really excited to see the final thing!”

“Well, it could still use a bit of fine-tuning, but I think we’re almost there,” Rui said.

“It’s gonna be really fun!” Emu cheered. “And we’ll get to see Saki play keyboard there even if it's just a normal keyboard and not a big shiny cool hammer!”

“Yeah!” Saki grinned. “It’s gonna be super fun to watch my brother perform again! It feels so weird being here all the time without him…”

“Where does he even go on Thursdays?” Nene asked with a frown. “I always thought it was kind of weird that he skips rehearsals despite how much he goes on about diligence and punctuality…”

“I think he said he goes on runs?” Saki said. Emu made a face.

“Huh, but last time I asked him he said he uses that time to research stuff for shows!”

“Really? Well, maybe I’m misremembering, but I’m pretty sure that’s what he said…”

“Let’s not worry about that for now,” Rui cut in, stepping forwards. “I’ll read for Tsukasa, so we can rehearse as normal. Can we go from the ending scene again?”

“How are we meant to do the ending scene without Tsukasa?” Nene asked. “He’s right in the middle, and you can’t be two places at once.”

“If I move really quickly, I think I can do it!” Emu said.

“Um, I can read some stuff, if you want?” Saki offered, raising her hand. “I don’t really know anything about acting, but if you just need someone to fill in then I think I can manage it!”

“That…could work, but…” Nene fidgeted as she spoke. “Don’t you need to practise your magical stuff…? You don’t have to worry about us…”

“No, it’s okay! I don’t mind! To be honest, I’m still feeling pretty tired today so I don’t wanna do anything too intense anyway.”

“I wanna see Saki perform on stage!” Emu said, grabbing her hands to pull her forwards. It was amazing how she could feel so inviting whilst putting in so much force. “You can be the hero just like when Tsukasa is the hero! And then you can both be heroes! You can be heroes at the same time! That’s super super wowowowow!” 

“Except having two protagonists makes completely no sense in this case…” Nene muttered. “But if Saki wants to stand in for today, that’s fine. Gives us a chance to rehearse without our ears being blasted the whole time.”

“I have no problem with that,” Rui said, smiling as he handed her a script. “Don’t worry about following everything perfectly. Just do as you feel comfortable.”

This was the reality that Tsukasa lived every day, Saki thought as she stood in the middle of the stage with the others, eyes scanning down her script. It was actually kind of a lot of work. Just standing here and reading off the page was easy, but- without the script, how would someone remember everything? Not just her lines, but the lines that came before that told her when to speak, or when to move, and also knowing which side of the stage to come in from, and when to leave…it was kind of different to just memorising sheet music and then playing along with the others. She could try and channel Tsukasa’s energy, but there was no way she could operate on the same level as her brother.

“I can’t believe you guys can do all of this without a script!” Saki said after they’d gone through several scenes, staring at the others in disbelief. “You’re reading it exactly like it’s written! I think I’d have to paraphrase or something at the very least…”

“Sometimes specific words cue lighting and other effects, so we have to be as accurate as we can,” Rui said. “Everyone has their own method to help them remember.”

“Cramming!” Emu said with a salute.

“I prefer a more gradual approach…” Nene said.

“Tsukasa is also cramming!” Emu said. 

“I usually try to remember stuff by putting it along to music,” Saki said, flipping back to the start of the scene. “I mean, it wouldn’t really work when the line is just ‘okay’ or ‘I understand’, but with some of the longer bits, like at the end…”

It actually fit with one of the songs she had been practising recently. There weren’t any lyrics yet, but that made it easier to fit the words along with the tune as she sang, one hand absently moving as if she had a keyboard in front of her. She got to the end of the line and trailed off, laughing sheepishly.

“Well, of course you couldn’t do that in the actual show,” she said. “It would be kind of weird if one person just started singing randomly, huh!”

“Have you ever heard of musical theatre…?” Nene asked warily.

“Actually, I like that,” Rui said, looking thoughtful. “What song is that? It complements the mood of the ending quite well.”

“Yeah, it was really really nice!” Emu exclaimed with wide eyes. “That’s a song that goes upupupup right up into the sky!”

“Oh, no, it’s just a silly thing I was working on for my band! It doesn’t really have any lyrics or anything yet, and we haven’t really tried playing it properly…” Or, she hadn’t yet been able to bring it up with the others. “I don’t even know if the current tempo is any good or if I should slow it down or speed it up or maybe add some stuff or change the chords or- you know!”

“Oh no,” Nene said, but it wasn’t Saki she was frowning at. “You’re thinking about making it a musical now, aren’t you?”

“It doesn’t have to be a full musical,” Rui said. “It’s not like we’d have access to a live band or anything, but it could be a good idea to end with a song. Of course, only with Saki’s permission.”

“W-well, wouldn’t you have to check with my brother to see if he’s okay to sing, too…?”

“That’s okay, I don’t have to ask Tsukasa for permission since he signed the waiver form.”

“Waiver form?” Nene raised an eyebrow. “What waiver form? I didn’t sign anything like that.”

“No,” Rui said. “That was just for Tsukasa.”

"Right..."

“Can you teach me your song, Saki?” Emu asked, bouncing up to her. “I wanna sing it too! Then we can all fly together, right?”

“If you really wanna use it, I don’t mind, but I should probably figure out the full thing first,” Saki said. “Up until now I’ve only really used it to memorise vocab for my classes, so it’s not exactly super complex. Usually it’s just like one two three, sin-cos-tan, haha…”

“It’s very impressive that you can write your own music, though,” Rui said. “Your bandmates must appreciate your talents very much.”

“Yeah, they- we’re- really good friends!” Why was it such a struggle to say that? “We’ve wanted to make music together ever since we were little kids.”

“That’s so sweet…” Emu said. “It’s so special getting to share so much of your life with someone! And spending every day following the same dream is a really super special feeling too!”

“Y-yeah!” Except I’m…

“Shall we pack up for today?” Rui asked. “The finale idea might be good, but we’ll give Saki some time to think about it, okay? I understand you must be very busy at the moment. There’s no pressure on you to feel as though you have to make something for us.”

“No, I really like it!” At least she could be honest about that. Music was fun. Well, everything was fun, even the magical girl training and fighting. It was just- a lot, sometimes. Especially alone. Even though she wasn’t really alone now. It was just…her friends, and her brother… “Let me go through it once more tonight and I’ll let you know, okay?”

“Yay yay! We get to do another musical!” Emu did a spin before bounding back to Nene. “Nene, you should sing too! Then we can all hear your super pretty voice!”

“No, only the hero is supposed to say those lines…”

Saki took a step back from the group, smiling to herself. Maybe it would be nice to use one of her songs in their show. Hearing Tsukasa sing it would be pretty fun. She’d probably have to ask the others first…well, if she could think of a good enough excuse as to why she was even involved with the show at all. The words did fit, so it wasn’t like that was an issue, but- it felt dishonest, somehow. That hero at the end, and herself…they were different people.

“Are you going home?” Rui asked her, and Saki looked up, forcing her smile back on. 

“I guess I probably should!” She pulled her phone out of her pocket, checking the time. “My brother’s probably already home so I…”

‘SORRY!!!! I’ll be slightly late home. Are you already back???? Are the others with you??????’

“...But I have a little time,” Saki finished. “Are you guys all walking back together?”

“No, I was going to stay a little longer. But you’re welcome to join Emu and Nene, if you’d like. I’m sure they’d be happy for the extra company. It shouldn’t be too hard to catch them up.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t wanna get in the way!” Saki laughed. “I’m fine getting home by myself, like I said. It’s not even dark yet.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t get in the way.” 

Saki turned to face the sunset, the lights of the amusement park still flashing in the distance. Today felt like it was ending kind of early, somehow. Just school and one training session where she hadn’t even trained. After the past few weeks, this much felt easy. A little empty, even. 

‘don’t worry! i’m with the others :)’ 

That wasn’t a lie.

“Did you want any help packing up?” Saki asked Rui as he climbed back onto the stage. “I’m glad the stage is fixed now! You can barely even tell anything happened.”

“Yes, I knew it wouldn’t be too difficult to fix,” Rui said. “I suppose it was quite the strong enemy you were fighting.”

“I’m not even sure it was,” Saki said sheepishly, climbing up the steps on the side. “I just didn’t expect a Level0 to not have a solid body. They’re supposed to be really straightforward, but that fight was just- kinda weird. Do you want me to bring that box across to the other side?”

“If you’d like,” Rui said, collecting his tools together. “What was so strange about it?”

“My hammer just totally went through! I’ve never had that happen before. And there was also this thing, right before I attacked it, I-”

Saki paused, and Rui looked over with a curious expression. She shook her head.

“Well, that part isn’t really important, but- it’s also weird because I’m pretty sure I saw the same thing at my school the other day.” She put the box down, glancing up at the tarp covering the part of the roof still under construction. “But my hammer worked that time! I mean, it was still kinda weird ‘cause then it was sticky or whatever, but it went away after a bit.”

“Could it have been a matter of adjusting your settings?” He sat down on the stage, starting to fiddle with one of the props with a screwdriver. At least, she was guessing it was a prop. It was some kind of robotic cat, and Saki wasn’t sure what other purpose a thing like that could have. “Maybe the first time was just bad luck.”

“Maybe.” Saki thought back to the way Honami’s voice had sounded on the school bench. The heaviness of the shadow. “It was just. Unexpected.”

“Hmm.” He turned the prop onto its side, eyes sharp with focus even if his voice was still calm. “Did it look like a shadow?”

Saki blinked. “It- did! Yeah! How did you know that?”

“Ah.” Rui lowered the prop, his smile tight as if he’d just discovered a chip in its paint. “I think the problem might be more widespread than we first thought.”

“But it’s gone now,” Saki said as Rui stood up, taking his phone from his pocket. “I got rid of it- huh?”

There was an image- no, a video of the top of the city up on his phone, the squares of the buildings visible despite the dim lighting. At first it looked like the picture was of bad quality, as if the lens had been smudged with some kind of ink, but then Saki realised it was the same thing she had seen before. A lot of the same thing she had seen before.

“No way…no way! How can there be this much? I swear I can see it on like ten different streets! Oh no, do you think my phone’s about to start going off again-?”

“It’s been like this for a few days,” Rui said. “Though it seems to gradually be getting larger. It seems quite troublesome, doesn’t it?”

“Oh man…” Saki stepped back, forcing herself to look away from the phone. “There’s no way I can defeat all that by myself…I have so much homework to do…”

“It must be tough,” Rui said after a moment. “Fighting alone.”

Saki shrugged, looking behind at the empty audience. “It’s fine. I’m used to it. It’s probably better this way, anyway.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because- I mean. I’m not very strong. If I was in a team, I’d probably just be holding everyone back the entire time. And then they’d get super mad at me!” Saki sat down, letting her legs dangle over the edge of the stage. “Or like, they’d be mad but they wouldn’t wanna say it ‘cause I’m part of the team, but I’d still feel really bad all the time. At least when I’m by myself, I can just go at my own pace and not slow anybody down.”

Rui took a seat next to her, holding the robot once more. Now that Saki could see it up close, she was surprised to see how cute it looked despite the bunch of complicated parts exposed in its open compartment. Almost as if it was designed to look like a friend. “Have you tried it?”

“Huh?”

“Being in a team?”

“Well…no.” The calm orange above was starting to fade, leaving only a murky blue behind. “I have my friends but we’re not a magical team or anything. Just a band! And I can’t tell them about the magic stuff, so. I can’t even tell my brother. I don’t know.”

“I see.” Rui turned the robot around, tapping gently on top of its head as if trying to rouse it from sleep. Its eyes lit up with a warm glow, and Saki smiled. 

“Maybe I’d feel different if I was stronger. Then maybe I could start my own team! But I don’t even know my secondary power, and I read online you can’t unlock that without fully realising your trigger event but that’s not something I-” Saki stopped. “Oh sorry, I’m probably making no sense right now, haha…”

“You’re talking about the initial event that creates a magical girl, right? Before your first transformation.”

“Yeah! You know about it? I always loved reading magazine interviews when I was a kid from magical girls talking about theirs. Stuff like the first time they won an award in school or eating fresh cakes from a bakery with their mom…I always thought they were really sweet.”

Rui placed the robot down onto the stage, letting it explore the area between them. “But you don’t know yours?”

“I mean…I think…I know it.” Saki paused. “I dream about it a bunch, and I’ve heard that’s usually a sign of it being important. Like your subconscious telling you ‘hey! This is what you need to focus on to unlock your potential! Listen up!’. But…”

“But?”

Was it really okay to say this much to someone she didn’t even know that well? It was weird, because in a way, it felt easier to say because she didn’t know Rui that well. It wasn’t like speaking to her friends or her brother who had known her all this time, even back when she was still in hospital. They knew everything about her because they had been there for most of it - especially Tsukasa. But Rui only knew her as she was now. It was the same with Nene and Emu. She wasn’t someone who had needed IV drips and painkillers and injections. She was the younger sister of their friend, and she was a magical girl.

“I think there’s something wrong with- mine,” Saki said. “It's supposed to be a good memory, but- I don’t think mine is very happy. And I’m scared that’s interfering with my powers. Or- at the very least- maybe it’s interfering with…me?”

Rui tilted his head. “With you?”

“Sorry, that probably sounds really stupid…” Saki shook her head. “I’m getting you mixed into all my stuff when the only reason any of you guys are even involved in this is because of my own mistake…and it’s not like I have any right to feel bad or lonely because I have so so so many people now! And they’re always there for me when I need it so there’s no problem at all, seriously! I don’t even know why I’m still thinking these things.”

“It’s possible to still feel lonely when surrounded by people,” Rui said softly. The robot rolled forwards away from them.

“I know, yeah, but that would only make sense if they were complete strangers, right? But they’re my friends! I really love my friends. I spend so much time with them and we make music together and it’s super fun! But then I just- remember stuff. And it wasn’t even their fault. I was difficult. I’m not an- easy friend to have.”

So many hospital stays and appointments. Cancellations and rearrangements. Making others worry and dragging them into her problems. The never ending disruption and false hope. She took away their chance at a normal friendship. She took away her brother’s chance of a normal childhood. Things she could never give back.

“My situation isn’t the same, but I think I can understand those feelings,” Rui said.

“...Really?”

“I was sure there wasn’t a single person out there who would be able to tolerate me. Having friends was out of the question. I accepted that. I lived my life like that.”

“That’s- how I felt too,” Saki murmured. “But you’re like my brother’s closest friend! I’ve never met anyone as crazy about shows as you guys! You’re like, destined to be together.”

“Maybe, but I felt so unsure at first.” Rui smiled. “I was waiting for it to crumble. I felt like I had obtained something I shouldn’t have, and eventually the universe would right itself by ripping it out of my hand once more.”

“I…get that.” Was she waiting for it too? The inevitable return to how things used to be? Another fever, another infection. It was sure to happen eventually. “How did you…overcome that?”

“I’m sorry. I’m not really sure. I don’t know if I went about it the best way, to be honest. We argued a lot at the start.”

“Oh…” 

“But I spent a long time thinking there was no need to share my life with others,” Rui said, guiding the robot back towards his hand. “I believed I could be fulfilled with only my own thoughts and inventions. But I was wrong. Of course it can be freeing to create alone, but it’s also very limiting too. There’s so much I would never have been able to learn without Tsukasa and the others. I realise now it’s much better to share wonderful things with others. To experience them together.”

The robot leaned against his palm and purred happily as Rui stroked its head. Did he program it to act that way? It seemed so alive.

“But I know that’s easier said than done,” he said, placing the robot back in his lap. “I still get wisps of those old feelings even now. The only difference is that when I remind myself my friends enjoy my company the way I am, I can actually believe it. And it only feels a little selfish.”

“...That sounds nice.” Saki looked up. No stars yet. Maybe it wasn’t quite late enough, or maybe tonight was just cloudy. “Why did you make that little robot? What’s it for?”

Rui chuckled. “The same as all the others. To make people smile.”

Saki watched the robot purr contently in Rui’s lap. Ah, suddenly things made a lot more sense now. She reached out to pet its head, and laughed as it beeped happily. “It’s cute.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Saki suddenly realised how dark it had gotten, “Ah, I’m sorry for being so talkative! All that stuff is nothing bad anyway. I’m just making a big deal out of nothing, seriously!”

There was a buzz from her phone, and Saki jumped, ready to find a Level2 or even Level3 alert staring back at her, but- it was a text from one of her workmates. Of course, not every message had to be the end of the world. 

‘Saki, I’m so sorry to ask but can you cover my shift tomorrow…? I’m sorry, I just feel so bad right now…I can’t move…’

“Everything okay?” Rui asked.

“Yeah, just one of the girls from work is sick,” she said, standing up. “I guess there’s something going around right now. My classroom has been pretty empty recently.”

“Hmm.” He frowned, but didn’t say anything else.

“Sorry for talking about all that stuff, anyway,” Saki said with a sheepish smile. “I didn’t mean to bother you with my silly problems! I’ve probably just been overthinking things. Next time I fight, my head’s gonna be completely and totally in the game! No more distractions!”

“I don’t think it’s silly,” Rui said. “Actually, I think it’s good to make sure you’re in a good headspace before you fight. Especially with this current enemy.”

“Huh? Why do you say so?”

“I’m not sure,” Rui said. “It’s just a feeling I have.”

He was so reassuring, so wise. Saki was almost starting to question if he was too normal for her brother. He hadn’t even raised his voice above eighty decibels the entire time they’d been talking. Was that really okay for a friend of Tsukasa’s?

“I should probably get home,” Saki said, pulling her bag over her shoulder. “If I’m not back before my brother, I’m probably gonna have to climb in through the window or something…”

“If you do that, I’d recommend going for the bathroom window,” Rui said, and smiled warmly. “It’s usually much easier to break in there due to the opening mechanisms typically used for those windows.”

“...Oh.” Actually, he and Tsukasa would be fine. “Okay! Sure. Thank you.”

She’d only made it past the first streetlight outside of the park when her phone buzzed with a message from Tsukasa asking to tell him when she was home safe. There were a couple more in the band group chat, too. A text from her mom, and a sticker from Emu. Always lively and always busy. There were so many people who cared about her, people who forgave her and accepted her for who she was. 

Saki really wished she could believe it too.

-

Where is Pink Petal????? She always patrolled on Saturdays but I havent seen her in 2 weeks :((((

DO NOT EVEN TELL ME MISS SUNNY GOT TAKEN DOWN LAST NIGHT I S2G

the other team out last night won with no problems but idk they looked tired. smth going on?
>exam season?
>Not at my school at least……

me when lvl3 alert and nobody else shows up fml

This was bad. So bad. Tsukasa picked up the pace of his scrolling, moving past even more posts and pictures. How could this be happening? There weren’t any updates about him at all. Even after his recent string of victories? This didn’t seem right at all. Something was wrong.

Tsukasa rolled over on his bed, frowning at the screen. Usually after a weekend, his feed would be full of cool battle videos and fights of the week, but- everything just seemed off lately. Despite the recent influx of alerts, there was hardly any news at all. Just- speculation. Defeats. Disappearances. Hiatus announcements. It didn’t make sense. Why would everyone suddenly decide to give up now? 

Maybe it was turning into a dire situation. Not only the lack of fans, but the lack of magical girls as a whole- could it be that the city was becoming an unsafe place? Monsters swarming at every corner, no place to hide? His friends and family couldn’t live in a place like that. Weren’t things only going to get worse without action? And- where was Saki? He’d been so preoccupied rushing to get back he hadn’t been into her room to check if she was okay. So unforgivably careless! Tsukasa jumped off his bed and hurried to the door, phone still clutched in hand. Maybe she was sick, or hurt, or lost somewhere in the city-

Tsukasa threw back his door, only to find Saki across the hallway, stepping out from the bathroom. Oh.

“Oh, hi, Tsukasa!” Saki waved at him as she walked forwards. She seemed- fine. A little breathless, maybe?

“I didn’t know you were home!” he said. “I don’t think I heard you get back…”

“I’ve been here the whole time!” Saki smiled. “You didn’t realise?”

“I guess not…” Though, now he looked more closely- “You seem a little dishevelled. Are you okay? Have you been exercising? It’s not a fever, is it-?”

“I was just washing my face in the bathroom!” Saki said, tucking a strand of loose behind her ear quickly. “It’s bad for your skin to leave make-up on overnight. You know that.”

“That’s true. Wait, why do you have your bag with you?”

“T-to remove my make-up, obviously!”

“Ah, right.” A very normal and understandable explanation. Tsukasa nodded to himself. “Did you already get some dinner? I made some before I knew you were back, but I saved you some just in case!”

“Oh, thank you.” For some reason, Tsukasa could’ve sworn her smile grew just a little smaller in that moment. “You didn’t need to do that! I could’ve made my own.”

“It’s no problem at all!” Tsukasa put his hands on his hips. “My dear sister deserves nothing less after working so hard each and every day!”

Saki looked away. “Thank you. Anyway, you don’t need to make anything tomorrow night because I’m covering another shift at work and I’ll be eating there, okay? So don’t stress yourself worrying about me!”

“Oh.” Tsukasa paused, then frowned. “Is that okay though? You’ve been working a lot lately. You know it’s okay to tell them no if it’s too much!”

“I know.” When she looked up again, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong at all. “Anyway, how are your rehearsals going? It’s only like two weeks until the final performance, right? Did you already learn all your lines? Me and the girls are still- practicing hard!””

“Of course!” Tsukasa nodded. “As expected of me! Even though we’ve had some difficulties recently. Did you know a bird attacked the stage? I didn’t believe something like that could happen at first, but apparently it was a really big bird. Can you imagine that?”

“I definitely cannot imagine that at all!”

“Right? But either way, it’s almost fixed now, so we have nothing to worry about.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Saki smiled, and Tsukasa nodded again. There was nothing wrong at all. His little sister was safe and exactly where he thought she was. “Then, I’ll let you get back to your work!”

“Of course!”

Tsukasa turned back to his room, hearing Saki close the door behind him. So it was to be a worry-free evening. That was always welcome. His friends and family were safe and he had no urgent business. Maybe he could use this opportunity to catch up on schoolwork. Or, more importantly, to rehearse his lines once more. The words were all there, but there was probably more he could do to fully understand how to play a hero. His part wasn’t perfect yet.

Tsukasa stood one step forward, and then his phone buzzed.

Monster energy detected nearby! Danger level: 2!

Never mind a free evening, then. He’d skipped that last one due to Shiho’s advice, but this was a whole level lower and he had no reason not to attend. Especially if it was this close to his residence…there was no choice. Tsukasa spun around in his doorway, just in time to see Saki also stepping back into the hallway.

“Oh, Tsukasa?”

“Saki?” No, play it natural! “Ah, I was just simply going to…”

“I was gonna grab some water!” Saki said, moving one hand away from her pocket. 

“Grab some water! Yes! Me too!”

Did that work? It probably worked. Though he felt less sure as Saki followed him downstairs to the kitchen, standing nearby as he poured them each a glass of water. No, all he had to do was wait for her to leave, then make a quick exit out the front door. A perfect plan, actually. She would think he was back in his room and by the time he got back, she would likely be asleep, allowing for a seamless re-entrance. Tsukasa held back a grin as he sipped his water, leaning against the counter. The perfect plan. As to be expected from someone as talented as him. 

Except, she wasn’t leaving. Saki kept standing across from him, eyeing him above the top of her glass as she took equally small sips. What was it? Did she want to discuss something? 

“Saki-”

“Um, Tsukasa-”

“Hm?” He stood up straight, and Saki blinked. “What was it?”

“Oh, no, you go first!”

“No, I was just…wondering if there was anything you wanted to talk about…”

“I was about to ask you the same thing! You’re totally staring me down here!”

“Huh? You’re the one staring!”

“No way! You look like something's seriously bothering you! What is it?”

“I-it’s nothing! I want to know what’s bothering you!”

“There’s nothing wrong at all!”

“R-really?” And that was great to hear, except Saki still wasn’t leaving. Tsukasa put his glass down, waiting a few more seconds. “Then…I guess I’ll…go to bed.”

“Ah, yeah.” Saki placed her glass down also. “Me too.” 

Maybe if she- headed up first? But it seemed like she was determined to match his pace. Slow enough to try and stall, but not too slow that it looked unnatural. Like trying to exit the stage whilst knowing the crew were behind schedule and the next scene was yet to be set up. There was no need to raise suspicion in the audience, but if things continued this way, there could be a disaster. Maybe some more improv? But at this point any more obstructions were sure to look questionable. So…

“Then- good night!” Tsukasa stood at his door.

“Yup!” Saki stood outside hers. “Good night!”

Another second passed before they both stepped into their rooms. Tsukasa leaned back against his door, eager to leave again but knowing this exit had to be the final. The whole performance would be completely thrown out if he made an unscripted reappearance. 

But- his phone was still buzzing. Which was strange, thinking about it. Usually the initial alert calmed after a magical girl appeared on scene, but this one was ongoing. Because it was late? But it wasn’t that late. People were still awake. Alerts in this area were usually dealt with much faster than this. Tsukasa took a seat on his bed, staring at his phone intently. Maybe he should message one of the others to see if they knew what was going on? No, that would involve leading his friends towards possible drama. Climb out the window? But someone might see, and it would be pretty obvious if someone saw him scaling his own house…

Just as he was considering creating some kind of diversion, the buzzing on his phone stopped. So someone was able to attend after all. A relief, even if it was one that stung. All this training, yet it felt like he was hardly accomplishing anything at all. He’d just have to wait until next time. Next time, again. With a frown, Tsukasa tucked his pendant away and took the script from his bedside table instead.

“Because that’s why I’m here,” he read, voice loud in his quiet room. “It’s my duty to light the skies up. It’s up to me, because it has to be. That’s right, isn’t it?”

Nobody replied.

Chapter Text

Saki tucked a finger behind the back of her shoe as she slid it onto her foot, the soreness of her upper body muscles still apparent as she straightened back up. It wasn’t even that yesterday was particularly intense, but more that she’d slept fretfully after missing the call last night. Not that she was sure she could’ve even handled a Level2 by herself, but it would have been nice to at least give it a go. It had just been seriously bad timing with Tsukasa hovering around at the same time. What were the chances he decided to step out of his room just as she needed to leave? Just bad luck, she supposed.

“Hm? You’re heading out early today.” 

Speaking of…

“I already told you I was working today,” Saki said, meeting her brother’s gaze from where he was peering around from the kitchen, sleeved rolled up and mid-prep for breakfast. “My coworker called in- sick?”

“Both the morning and the evening?” He frowned. “You should get a chance to rest too on the weekend!”

“You say that, but don’t you guys usually work all day on Saturday?” she asked with a light grin, steadying her bag over her shoulder.

“That’s different!” He crossed his arms, rolling pin knocking against his elbow. “Saturdays are the busiest day for the park and we have to put on multiple shows throughout the day.”

“Like Saturdays aren’t also the busiest day for the cafe?” Saki asked, then stopped. “Wait- what happened to your arm?”

“Huh?” 

He followed her gaze to his exposed arm where Saki could see the edge of a bandage sticking out from under the rolled up hem, which he quickly pulled down. “Oh- that’s just! It’s an injury I got the other day at rehearsal.”

“An injury?”

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing new!”

“You didn’t tell me,” Saki said quietly, suddenly wishing she’d waited a little longer to put on her shoes so she could step closer to her brother. He seemed too far away. 

“It wasn’t anything major. Just a scrape! And completely my own fault anyway. I- turned my back at the wrong moment.”

“Oh…” They hadn’t used the fun bandaids for Tsukasa. Had he bandaged it himself? The thought made her feel sad, somehow. 

“Y-you really don’t need to worry!” Tsukasa tried again, stepping closer but still out of arm’s reach. “Of course my dear little sister is so kind as to worry about a small scrape on her brother’s arm but it’s absolutely not a problem at all! These types of things happen when you’re working on a stage! I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of all the times Emu has slapped me in the face by mistake.”

“Yeah.” But even the memory of that wasn’t enough to make her laugh right now. Because at least those were things he had told her about. “Well- if you say it’s okay, I won’t worry about it too much! Just let me know if you need any more bandages or painkillers.”

Did she even have a right to feel bothered about Tsukasa not telling her something? That was probably ironic, considering everything that had happened recently. She picked up her pace as she headed down the street, trying to leave the thoughts behind her. If he said it wasn’t a problem, she should believe him, right? That was what she would want if it was her telling him not to worry. But- that was different. It wasn’t like she was hiding giant wounds from him! Just- little ones. And those were mostly gone anyway. It wasn’t the same at all.

At least it was easy to slip into automacy once she was at the cafe, back in her uniform and ready to work as normal. Returning the smile from her boss thanking her for coming in last minute, bowing at customers as they entered, preparing drinks the same way she always did. Even if some days were tiring, there was something about keeping a part-time job that remained exciting to her. A teenage girl attending school during the day, work in the afternoons, magical girl duties at night. Like a character from a comic, but this was her real life. A life that was being lived. That was something she could never let go of.

“You really saved me today, Saki!” her coworker said as she finished prepping a solo drink order. “I was so worried I was going to be alone all day at the till…I mean, at least it’s not too busy, but I’d definitely be completely overrun without you!”

“It’s okay! I don’t mind at all!” Saki looked over the cafe, which was definitely much emptier than it should have been at this time of the day. Only one tray left to clean up, and it was nearly noon. “I guess people just don’t feel like going out today?”

“Right? And it’s not even that cold! Maybe everyone’s just broke?”

“You think so?” Saki laughed as she picked up the order, double-checking the table number on the ticket.

“Don’t worry, I already checked and it’s definitely meant to be no sugar,” the other girl said. “It’s for a guy just around the corner.”

“Okay, I’ll take it over now!” No sugar or milk? Sounded kind of bitter. Definitely way more bitter than Saki preferred. Actually, the only person she knew who liked their coffee that strong was- “Toya!”

“Oh, Saki.” Toya looked up from the book resting on the table, smiling warmly. “I wasn’t aware you would be working today.”

“I’m not usually- but hey! It’s really good to see you!” She placed the drink down, then glanced around to make sure nobody else needed her assistance and moved closer to the table. “Are you here alone? You picked a good time! We’re really quiet right now.”

“Yes, I’m just here to pass some time before a meeting with my group later,” he said, nodding graciously as he took the drink. “I noticed it seems unusually quiet for a weekend. I didn’t expect to be able to find a seat.”

“Yeah, we were just saying! Normally by this time the whole place is packed, but it’s super quiet today.”

“Will you have to work a long time?” 

“Nah, just ‘til like two o’clock. That’s usually enough for the- lunch…rush…” Saki pressed her lips together as she surveyed the three customers constituting that rush.

“I see.” Toya smiled. “That’s nice. Do you have plans for later then?”

“Not really! I’m just going to-” Saki paused. What was she even doing later? Attending another alert on her phone? That was most likely. But it felt like she’d barely spent any time with the girls recently. And she was constantly away from home, too. It felt like so long that she’d been able to spend time somewhere and not feel guilty about one thing or the other.

“Are you okay?” Toya asked, and Saki jumped back to attention. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I hope I didn’t say anything rude.”

“No, no!” Saki waved a hand. “It’s not you at all. I just- have some stuff on my mind. Nothing big! It’s silly stuff.”

“Ah.” Toya seemed to contemplate this. “But if it’s troubling you, it can’t be that silly, surely.”

It would definitely sound stupid if she could tell him everything that had happened since that fight at the parking lot. She considered what Toya would say if she told him her identity. He’d definitely be dependable, and there was zero possibility that he would share her secret with anyone else, but- it would be a huge burden to place on his shoulders. And it would also mean forcing him to keep something from Tsukasa. That didn’t feel fair at all.

“I hope this isn’t too forward, but did you want to talk about it?” Toya asked. “I’m not sure how good I am at giving advice, but I can at least listen, if you’re allowed to take a break from your work.”

“Oh, I…” There wasn’t much for her to do in the back, and Toya would definitely make for a calming presence…Saki glanced back behind her, managing to catch her coworker’s eye. The question must have been clear in her face, since the girl paused from tying up a trash bag to quickly give her a smile and a thumbs-up. “That- should be fine! If it gets busy, I’ll just run back to help out.”

“Okay.” Toya carefully closed his book and pushed it to one side, turning to face her as she took the adjacent seat. She’d noticed it when they were younger and still the same now, the way that every action he made with his hands was almost as if he was playing the piano, deliberate and methodical. She wondered if she did anything similar. “So what is it that’s on your mind?”

“Well…I guess lately, I’ve just been thinking…” She frowned as she tried to think of the best way to phrase it. “Just- do you think it’s okay to keep an important secret from someone really close to you if it’s for their own protection?”

“...Please allow me some time to think about that,” Toya said after a slight pause, and Saki nodded, pressing her fingernails into her palm as she waited for an answer. He kept silent for a few moments, taking a delicate sip of his drink, before looking up again. “I suppose the first question I would need to ask would be: if it’s a secret that poses danger to one person, would it not also be the case that it poses danger to the person asking also?”

“Hm?”

“As an example- I know there are movies where often the plot is that one character has a group of bad people pursuing them, and they wish not to involve any of their loved ones in an attempt to keep them safe from harm. However, whether they tell anyone or not, it remains the same that the first character is still in harm’s way. If that were the case, I would think it would be advisable to tell someone of their predicament. The police, maybe?”

“But…what if the person was okay being in danger? Like, they’re strong enough to deal with it but involving someone else would make it more…complicated?”

Toya frowned. “How could someone be okay being in danger?”

“Um, like- maybe if they were used to it? Or they were okay dealing with it alone?”

“But wouldn’t that still count as danger?” Toya asked. “Based on the use of that word, it seems like something to be concerned about. Though, ultimately the wording of the question was if it would be okay or not. To answer that, I would say it depends on the individual circumstances and feelings of those involved. I’m sorry I’m not able to give a more decisive answer.”

“Ah…” It wasn’t a particularly unexpected answer, but still not the one Saki wanted to hear. Though, saying that- what answer did she want to hear? “It’s okay…”

“Forgive me for asking, but-” His expression turned more serious, more direct. “Are you in danger, Saki?”

“Huh?” She blinked, looking up. “No! No no no no, not at all! Haha, no way! It was actually just a question for an essay I’m writing- uh, an English essay! And um, yeah! I was just struggling to think of a good answer but I think what you said is a really good idea!”

“Oh, okay.” Toya relaxed back, smiling again. “Well, if you need any help with your English, you can always ask me. Oh, perhaps we should repeat this same conversation in English?”

“No!” Saki stood up, the table shaking with the abruptness of her movement. “No, no, no no no let’s- let’s definitely not do that! Ah, anyway, I better get back to work! My coworker probably needs my help- cleaning, or something.”

“Okay.” He nodded politely again. “I hope everything goes well.”

Me too, Saki thought as she headed back to the kitchen, ready to ask what needed cleaning so she could take her mind off everything else. There was nobody in the back, though. Saki rechecked the front, but her coworker wasn’t there either. Weird. Hadn’t she gone to take out the trash? That should only take a minute at most. Saki made sure there were no customers wanting to order, then headed to the back door.

She peered around the open doorway, then let out a quick breath of relief when she spotted her coworker over by the bins, just as she’d thought. Except, she wasn’t moving. Or- maybe she was trembling slightly. And all around her, there was a deep black, murky shadow.

"Watch out-!” Saki ran forwards, wishing in that moment she hadn’t left her pendant in her bag. She grabbed the girl’s shoulder, pulling her back into the light. The shadow seemed to quiver slightly before slinking back into the wall, disappearing out of sight. It was frustrating, knowing it had only got away because of her inattentiveness- no, now wasn’t the time for that. “Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry…” she muttered, and Saki could see tears dripping down her cheeks before she covered her face with her hands. “It’s all my fault…I said terrible things to Yumi and ever since then she’s been too self-conscious to wear her hair up…how could I have been so awful…?”

“Uh- th-that’s not your fault! Everyone says careless things sometimes! Um, I’m sure Yumi forgives you…?”

“I’m so sorry…” Without warning, she dropped down to her knees, and Saki crouched down beside her, keeping a hand on her shoulder. “It’s so unforgivable…”

“It’s okay.” Saki gave a wary look to the surrounding area, trying to support the girl up from the floor to get back inside. “Just take a break. You can go home if you don’t feel well.”

There was no doubt it had done something to her. Maybe it attacked those displaying negative emotions? But there hadn’t been any sign of anything wrong moments before. Could she have been hiding it? Or maybe the shadow had somehow…drawn it out of her?

Saki looked back again as she led the girl through the door, an uneasy feeling rising in her chest. There really was no escaping it anymore. It was everywhere she went. And something was…really wrong.

-

Every kind of work had meaning. There was no wasted effort when it came to carrying out a job, because even failure presented future opportunities to learn. It allowed for advancement of skills, fine tuning, personal growth…yes, nothing was wasted at all.

“Why again?!”

Except, right now, Tsukasa was kind of feeling that this type of work was- somewhat futile. Every street was the same. He spotted a shadow, he shot it with his spear, it disappeared- and then came back again ten minutes later. Was it a case of regeneration? Were they spawning faster than he could defeat them? Or were they actually not being vanquished at all, as he had first thought? The answer was unclear. His phone was ranking them at Level2, but that was hardly reliable anymore considering it had been glitching out the past few days. Sometimes alerting him and other times not. It could certainly be the case that the power ranking was wrong too.

“I don’t get it…none of this makes any sense.”

Tsukasa stopped on top of a building, taking a breath as he smoothed down his uniform. It might not have been a waste, but there were probably better ways to spend his time. He glanced behind at the sun setting in the distance, the sky fading into blue. The others must be finishing up practice by now. Maybe he should’ve gone there instead of patrolling. No, that was a bad way to think. The safety of the city came first!

…But, if he wasn’t making any progress here, it wouldn’t hurt to go have a quick check on the park. The shadows were making strides across the city, and although he couldn’t quite figure out the exact danger they posed, he knew it probably wasn’t good for them to be lurking in areas with lots of people. He jumped across to the next building, landing hard against the rooftop. Just a few more jumps and he could get to the outside wall of the park. Just one quick look, and then he’d go back to the inner city to keep fighting. 

Just as he reached the wall, there was a vibration from his pocket. Not the same pattern for an alert, though. It was a message from Shiho.

Tsukasa, are you patrolling right now?

I am! Why do you ask? He tucked his phone back away as he kept walking, making sure to keep an eye for any stray park goers below. This side of the park wasn’t particularly populated, but it would still be troublesome if anyone was to catch a glimpse of him. If they were fans, which was very likely due to his spectacular nature, they might all rush at once and cause trouble for the other staff members. And they had all explicitly promised not to cause any more problems for the other park staff after that one special effect tester session got out of hand. As much as it was very much not his fault, he was the troupe leader and therefore had responsibility over the other members- so he would not be stepping into the spotlight tonight.

The Wonder Stage was still lit up, which meant his troupe must still be there. Tsukasa stepped carefully past a tree that was blocking his view, scanning the ground for any suspicious activity. There was nothing he could see. Just Rui stood over by the stage, Nene reading through some notes, Emu and Saki talking to each other by a bench-

Wait. Saki?

Tsukasa narrowed his eyes, taking another step forwards to make sure he was definitely seeing right. What reason did his sister have to be at the Wonder Stage at this moment? Did Emu maybe leave something at school? But it was pretty late, so why give it her back now? Actually, wasn’t she supposed to be at work? Or rehearsal? Oh no, he was losing track of what she’d told him…that wasn’t at all becoming of an older brother…

No, but how could he ask her why she was at the park without giving away that he’d seen her there? The same problem applied to his friends. Perhaps he could improv an indirect way to ask? But that might still be too obvious. Maybe he could just keep watching. That wasn’t spying, was it? They were his friends and his sister, so that was- permissible. Probably? He squinted, trying to get a better view of his sister, but at that moment, Rui looked up at him. He blinked once, then- smiled?

Tsukasa jumped back behind the tree, hurrying to hide himself from view. Well, not that it was a problem that he’d been seen by a fellow troupe member; his transformed self was unrecognisable to his regular self, so there was no way they would know he was actually him, but even still. There was still something unnerving about Rui’s expression. Too familiar. Maybe that was the dissonance of seeing someone he knew whilst they didn’t know him. More importantly, he still hadn’t solved the mystery of why his sister was there with them.

Another vibration. Can you come to the rehearsal studio in about twenty minutes? I think I have something to show you.

Something to show him…? Well, it wasn’t like he was too far away from the rehearsal studio. It was maybe seven or so buildings away. Tsukasa crept along the wall to the other side of the tree, then jumped back away from the park. There was probably a very normal explanation for Saki’s whereabouts. She probably just felt like checking out their show! Though he wished she could have done that when he was present…well, he’d invite her another day, if she was still curious. Surely she would ask him if she wanted to see.

Tsukasa made his way to a more hidden section of buildings to make his descent, following Shiho’s advice to avoid another Honami incident. As if he would be unlucky enough to be caught twice…the next time someone became aware of his identity, it would be by his own choice. Hopefully in a grand, dramatic reveal. In a show maybe? Well, that remained to be seen. There was no way he could let anyone else in on his secret whilst it was so dangerous right now anyway. 

Tsukasa tucked himself into an alcove as he transformed back to normal, frowning as he considered the question more. Actually, maybe right now was exactly the right time to say something. Not just in assuring that Saki was kept away from danger, but also to give her the comfort that her brother was out there fighting the problem. There was already so much she had to worry about. The state of the city shouldn’t be another one. Or would that make her worry more? 

“Ahh, there’s no good solution!” Tsukasa yelled to himself as he stepped back into the street, hands gripping his hair. He could ask Shiho for her thoughts, maybe? No, but she’d probably say the things she always did like ‘I can’t make that decision for you’ and ‘please stop yelling so close to the mic’. His troupe members would be the best people to discuss it with, but they were also out of the question for obvious reasons. “What am I supposed to do…?”

“Tsukasa…?” 

He looked up to see a figure further up ahead, hoodie on their back and bag on the shoulder. “Ohh, Toya! It’s you!”

“I thought I recognised your voice,” he said with a smile, walking up to him. “What a coincidence that I’m running into you here. I actually had a similar encounter with Saki just the other day.”

“Ohh, really?”

“Yes. I was getting a drink from her workplace, but they had to close early due to being understaffed.”

“That’s right, one of the girls got suddenly sick mid-shift and had to go home. I was worried Saki might’ve caught something, but she didn’t seem concerned. Well, I stocked up on supplies just in case…”

“That’s very considerate,” Toya said with a calm smile. “What about you? Did you just finish work?”

“Well, more or less,” Tsukasa said. “I haven’t quite solved the problem, but I’m confident I’m making progress!”

“That’s good to hear. Was that what you were saying before?”

“No, that’s…something else.” They set off walking along the street, before Tsukasa stopped. “Toya, do you think it’s okay to hide something from someone you care about if it’s for their own safety?!”

Toya looked at him. “...Would you like me to answer in English or Japanese?”

“Hm? Japanese.”

“Okay. I just wanted to check.”

“Oh, I see.” How nice of Toya to check what language he wanted to speak in. Wait, was that a thing people usually did-?

“Anyhow, my response would be that it depends on the person’s individual circumstances,” he continued. “If it’s the case that the person hiding it is put into greater danger by keeping that secret to themselves, I believe it would be best to share it. I don’t believe the person they care about would want them to be in peril all by themselves.”

“Mmm, that’s a pretty good answer,” Tsukasa said. “I’m a little surprised. I thought you would’ve needed some time to think about it before you answered.”

“I would usually, but someone actually asked me a very similar question not too long ago,” Toya said. “But Tsukasa, if you need any help, please don’t hesitate to ask me. This is a subject I believe I’m somewhat well versed in.”

“It is?!”

“Yes. I’ve even helped Akito with similar problems in the past.”

“Akito?! I never knew…” To think even Toya had dealt with this type of situation… “But what if I wanted to handle it alone? Of course I understand the importance of relying on others, but what if this is simply a battle I must face alone?”

“Hmm…” They stopped under the streetlights at a corner where Tsukasa knew they were going to split. “I would recommend taking your time and properly reviewing everything you’ve learnt so far before starting. That will make it easier to put it into practice and make it a smoother process once you actually start. Take frequent breaks and ensure you’re properly rested and hydrated. But if you do get stuck, there’s no shame in asking someone for help.”

“You really do know what you’re talking about…” Maybe he should’ve been coming to Toya for advice all this time. No, but that was an unfair burden to place upon his shoulders. Tsukasa could figure it out alone. Well, mostly. “Thanks so much for the advice, Toya! I’ll be sure to keep this in mind before my next attempt!”

“Of course,” he said, and smiled. “You can send me your first draft if you’d like, too.”

“Yeah, thanks! Wait, what?”

“I hope everything goes well,” Toya said as he nodded him goodbye, turning down the opposite street. Tsukasa watched for a couple seconds before he shook his head, hurrying down the street that led to the rehearsal studio. 

All three of the others were already there when he opened the door, scattered around the room with dismayed expressions. Ichika was sitting beside her guitar, Honami twisting her drumsticks between her fingers. A very silent room.

“What happened?” Tsukasa asked, shutting the door behind him. “Don’t tell me there was another attack at your school-!”

“That never happened in the first place,” Shiho said, looking up from her bass. “No, it’s not that. We just found out the event next weekend has been cancelled.”

“Huh?!” Tsukasa grabbed his phone from his pocket, swapping from the alerts app to his troupe’s group chat. Fifteen unread messages, and Rui was still typing. And they weren’t even about the bear-wolf discussion this time. “When did that happen?! They can’t cancel now! Why?”

“You haven’t noticed?” Shiho asked, raising an eyebrow. “The city is in danger. There are alerts every single day.”

“There was talk of upgrading the current threat level to five,” Ichika said, eyes low. “That would mean a nationwide crisis.”

“I wouldn’t go that far just yet,” Shiho said. “They’ve only just declared a potential Level4 warning. Besides, declaring a Level5 would cause mass panic, so I’m sure the government wants to avoid that until it’s completely necessary.”

“There’s no way they’re changing it to even Level4! I was just out there now and I defeated every single one of the shadows I attacked!”

“Didn’t I tell you to be careful with that?” Shiho asked, eyes sharp. “Just the fact you can say ‘every single one of them’ means that it’s something far beyond reasonable scale. It makes sense that they’re cancelling a high attendance public event.”

“Level4 in itself is quite serious though, isn’t it?” Honami asked. “I remember there was a lot of worry about that one a few years back…”

“Oh, I think I remember that!” Tsukasa said. “But everything ended up fine, didn’t it? There wasn’t any real damage to anything.”

“That’s just what people saw,” Shiho said, crossing her arms. “It only didn’t seem bad because it was dealt with quickly. But it easily could have been a lot worse under different circumstances. A Level4 isn’t something that can be defeated easily. Its impact is serious, and their mechanics are complicated and hard to understand. Without a team, they’re essentially impossible to defeat.”

Such extensive knowledge…Tsukasa wasn’t even sure he knew that much about higher level threats. He knew that five was the highest, and that most of the alerts he received were usually one or two, but that was pretty much it. “I don’t think you should say it’s impossible. There must be something I can do! What about the last Level4? Who defeated that? Maybe I could enlist their help this time too!”

“More More Jump,” Shiho replied. 

“...Oh.”

“Which brings me to my next point.” She took out her phone without looking up. “I have the video of their last fight.”

“Wait, really?!” Tsukasa threw his bag down to the side, cutting across the room. Even the other two seemed surprised by the news. “How did you get that? I thought those videos were reserved for emergency personnel and family members only!”

“There was a leak,” Shiho muttered. “Do you want to see? There’s nothing- graphic. And no sound. But maybe it might be useful in understanding what it is we’re up against.”

“Of course.” Tsukasa readied himself as she held up the phone, Ichika and Honami gathering on the other sides of him. Somehow staring at the fuzzy image almost made him feel nervous. The apprehension of waiting for a show he knew was destined to fail. 

It was hard to make out from the low quality, but after a couple seconds of stillness, Tsukasa could see a girl walking forwards into the dark lobby of a building. She seemed to hesitate in place for a second, gripping her head before falling to her knees abruptly. Her teammate ran to her side as she shook her head before collapsing fully to the ground. But- there wasn’t even any attack. Was it unrelated? No, the same thing was happening to the other girl too…

“That’s so awful…” Honami muttered, one hand hovering in front of her mouth. “It’s like something’s just- draining them…”

“Maybe it’s taking their powers?” Ichika suggested. The second girl on the video turned around with a distressed expression, before burying her face into her hands. “I think I heard something like that happened before…”

“It was a Level0 when it was first reported,” Shiho said. “If it was that weak when they attended the call, wouldn’t it make more sense to drain Mi- More Harmony first? It could take the powers from the weakest member first and then move onto the others, but it starts with More Hope instead.”

“Well, after taking the strongest member, it would easily have enough power to take out the others, right?” Ichika said. “It would make sense that way.”

“Oh no…” Honami murmured. “Now Harmony’s fallen too…”

“I didn’t know it happened so fast,” Ichika said. “They barely fought at all.”

“It’s the same for the other two,” Shiho said. “They just- fall.”

“It looks different,” Tsukasa said, narrowing his eyes at the video. The darkness he assumed was just the lighting was actually something more familiar. The same shadow as before, but- “The ones I saw earlier were much smaller. And definitely not as powerful as that! I saw tons of them and I never felt like I was being drained of any power.”

“Did you touch them though?” Shiho asked. “Or was it from a distance?”

“Well, true, I didn’t get that close…” But still, the murky shape on the floor seemed different to what he’d seen so far. It was slower, less mobile. Much larger. Harder to avoid. And it was having the same sudden effect on the other two girls.

“This is why I’ve been telling you to be more careful,” Shiho said, switching off her screen as soon as the footage ended. “You keep saying you’re worried about Saki’s wellbeing, but she’s going to be most distressed learning her brother is in hospital with an uncertain chance of recovery.”

“Don’t worry, that’s not going to happen!” Tsukasa declared, straightening himself back up. “I’ll put a stop to this before any of it can reach Saki!”

“Why are you still not getting this?” Shiho asked. “You can’t defeat this by yourself. You’re not strong enough. You need a team.”

“I know I’m not strong enough. That’s why I keep training and working to get better!”

“I mean, I think optimism is good, but I’m starting to get a bit worried…” Honami said, taking a seat at the drum kit. “Maybe it’s best just to take a break for now? It might be better left to a team with more experience…”

“But most of the teams have already stopped fighting! If I don’t do something, it’s just going to get worse!”

“Up until a few weeks ago, you didn’t even know how to hold your weapon correctly,” Shiho said. “You don’t even have access to your secondary power yet. I know you want to help, but if all four members of More More Jump went down that quickly, there’s no way it would be any different for you.”

“That’s not true!” Tsukasa could feel his audience slipping, their faith in him waning. “I can definitely access my secondary power! Or at least, I will soon! I know my emotional trigger point, and that’s all you need to unlock it, right? I just have to keep training and then it’ll reveal itself to me!”

“You know what it is?” Shiho seemed skeptical. “Then why can’t you use any secondary powers?”

“Well…I don’t know. But I definitely know what the memory is.” Tsukasa looked down at himself. “It’s when I let Saki down that night at the hospital. She was so alone and afraid, and I wasn’t there for her. The thought of that plagues me constantly. I know that I became a magical girl because I owe it to her, to make up for the way I failed that night.”

“That’s…not how it works.” Shiho’s voice was quieter now. “It’s not supposed to be- a bad memory.”

“It’s definitely that! I dream about it all the time. That feeling when I hugged her when she cried-” He tried not to think about it. “I can’t forget it. I just kept thinking- what if she hadn’t been able to make it out? What if the fire had trapped her inside? Who would’ve saved her?! I should’ve been there. It should’ve been me.”

“Oh…” Ichika’s eyes lowered. “You mean…that night.”

“That was…a long time ago,” Shiho said. “It’s not like you could’ve done anything, anyway.”

“So?! That doesn’t matter.” Tsukasa clenched his jaw. “She was all by herself. There was no one else with her.”

“I…sent her a text,” Ichika murmured.

“I was watching it on the news,” Shiho said. Honami stayed quiet.

“I never want anything like that to happen again,” Tsukasa said. “I got my powers because I wasn’t good enough back then, so I have to do all I can to protect her now. That’s my duty, as both a big brother and a magical girl!”

But the room felt even more devoid of energy than it did when he’d first entered. Too many hits in a row, he supposed. The cancellation of the concert and then that video…some scenes were hard to bounce back from. Shiho leaned down to pick up her bass, settling it back into its case.

“We should head home. There’s no point continuing with this setlist if the event isn’t happening. We’ll rethink tomorrow.”

The others moved to grab their things, but Tsukasa’s mind was stuck on that video. He hadn’t seen anything like that with the other shadows he’d encountered, but then, they weren’t the same. There was something different about the entity in that video.

“I’ll- see you later,” Honami said, voice small as she slipped out of the room. The other two were still securing their cases onto their backs, eyes low. 

“It’ll make sense eventually!” Tsukasa called out to them, head held high. “At least we know more now about what we’re up against. That’s a success in itself, is it not?”

“Just keep away for now,” Shiho said. “We don’t have enough information on its weakness and you won’t be of any use to anyone if you get knocked out.”

“Mmm…” But it really didn’t seem that complicated. Of course, an enemy that couldn’t be touched was dangerous, but if he understood that in advance, there really wasn’t so much to worry about. It had taken those girls off guard, but surely if they had had been aware of its nature beforehand, they would have handled it fine. There was no undefeatable monster. He had magic to fight with for a reason. This wasn’t the time to step back and do nothing.

“I, uh- I think you’ll be able to figure it out,” Ichika said to him, lingering back slightly as they entered the hallway, Shiho moving ahead. “You were like this a lot when we were younger, right? You never stopped at anything when Saki was involved.”

“Hm?” Tsukasa followed towards the door. “Well, of course. That’s just what I’m supposed to do.”

“I think you said that before, too…” Ichika smiled slightly, that same slightly nervous but calm expression she’d had even years ago. Sometimes she seemed unassuming, but she had stuck with Saki and had remained a constant support even through difficult times. That was something not to be undervalued.

“I just wish I could’ve done something before the event got cancelled,” Tsukasa said, thinking with disdain at the group messages waiting for him. “Do you think if I solve all of this before the weekend they’ll put it back on?!”

“Um, I’m not sure…I mean, there’s a lot of planning that goes into it, and it would be kind of late notice now…”

“But isn’t it better for it to happen a little rather than not at all?”

“Well, that might be-”

“Honami…?”

Shiho’s voice distracted him away from the conversation, looking ahead to see Honami standing still in the middle of the street with her back to them. And, directly below her, another snaking arm of a shadow.

“Honami-!”

“Get back!” Tsukasa ran forwards, holding up his pendant to transform and grab his staff out of the air in one swift movement. He shot the shadow right through its middle, the blast cutting through to the sidewalk. Just like all the others, it wriggled away and melted back into the darkness around it. Honami fell to her knees.

“Honami!” Ichika and Shiho were at her side before he could even lower his weapon, catching her by the arms as she slumped over. There were tears streaming out of her eyes. How could he have been so stupid as to let her leave alone? “Honami, are you okay? Does it hurt?”

“What did we do…?” she murmured, voice trembling. “How can we fix it…? Why…why am I such a coward all the time…?”

“No, you’re not a coward at all!” Ichika tried, but Honami shook her head.

“I didn’t say anything…I was too scared…I didn’t know what to say…what do I do…? I left her alone for so long…” She pressed her fists against her eyes. “It has to be my fault….she must be so angry…”

“It’s okay,” Shiho said, though her voice reflected otherwise. “It- was the same for all of us. You know that.”

“Y-yeah,” Ichika said. “You can’t think that way. And that was…so long ago. I’m sure she doesn’t feel that way now.”

“I’m so sorry.” Honami kept crying. “I can’t fix it…I don’t know what to do…”

“We should get her home,” Shiho said, letting Tsukasa lift her out of their hold. “She’s clearly not thinking right.”

“It did something to her, didn’t it?” Ichika glanced at the wall behind them, but there was nothing. “It was like it was…feeding on her emotions.”

“Yeah,” Shiho said heavily. “It’s not drawing on people’s powers. It’s…”

They didn’t have to say it, but it was clear in their eyes, the word palpable in the air. Guilt. It was guilt. There was nothing else it could be. Honami sobbed against her palms, shaking in his grasp.

The sky above was dark.

Chapter Text

“It doesn’t matter how hard I try. No matter what I do, I keep getting left behind. I’m letting everyone down. I want to be stronger, but I’m just weak.”

Saki turned the page, eyes moving across the lines in silent contemplation. It wasn’t like there was any point in looking over the script, since rehearsals had been paused due to the recent news, but- there was something a little sad in knowing she wouldn’t get to see the full story told from start to finish. No flight. No ending.

There was a creak from over at the door, and Saki jumped, hurrying to flip the pages back to the start like they were her private diary instead of a fictional script. A cautious figure stepped through the door, glancing left and right tentatively before they caught sight of Saki and their eyes widened.

“Oh, sorry-” Nene took a step back, as if not sure whether to leave or not. “I didn’t realise you were in here…”

“Ah, no, it’s my bad! I didn’t mean to startle you.” Saki swivelled around in the chair, shoes nearly colliding with a pile of boxes. “Actually, I just came here to check out the feed from the drone, but I didn’t realise there was a password on the computer and Rui hasn’t replied to my message yet…”

“Oh, yeah.” Nene seemed to hesitate for a moment, before taking a careful step forward. “With Rui, you’ll either get a reply right away or you’ll have to wait until four in the morning…um, but, I know the password. I can unlock it for you.”

“Really? Thank you so much!” Saki sat back to let Nene lean over to enter the password, placing the script to one side. “Were you looking for something in here? I could help you find it!”

“Oh, no, I was just…” Nene looked away. “No, nothing really…”

“Are you sure?” They’d been together all this time and Saki had barely had the chance to talk to Nene. She was always slinking back behind Rui or Emu, never directly talking to her or asking any questions. Maybe a little unsure of herself like Ichika, but quiet and calm like Honami. But then also, sometimes she would say things that reminded Saki of Shiho. “Or did one of the others send you in here for something?”

“No, they’re not here…” 

“Oh, but then, why…” Saki glanced around the room as she waited for the computer to load. It was pretty cramped, but the ceilings were high and this office was located away from the main bulk of the park. If her friends were in a room like this… “Oh, I know! Did you come here to practice singing? I bet the acoustics must be pretty good, right?”

“H-how did you know that?” Nene shook her head. “It’s okay, I don’t want to bother you. I can find somewhere else-”

“No! I don’t mind! I’m just here to do boring stuff anyway. I mean, it’s not like there’s any rehearsal to do…”

It had been so awful to open up her email whilst walking home to see that announcement. Maybe it was irrational, but part of her still felt like she was the reason to blame somehow. She wasn’t just a simple bystander. She was the one who was meant to deal with these things. Well, true, she was still new to the whole fighting thing, but regardless…

“...How often do you usually practice with your friends?” Nene asked, still standing as if ready to bolt at any moment. Still, Saki brightened at the conversation attempt.

“Some weeks we try to do it every single day! And when we can’t do that, we usually do our own individual practice! And of course sometimes we spend time working on making songs and lyrics, or promoting our next show…we’re basically together every single day! Or, um. We used to be. It’s been busy lately.”

“Kind of the same as us then,” Nene said. “It’s a lot of work but- it’s fun.”

“Yeah!” Saki grinned. “I really like that kinda thing! Like having somewhere to go after school and on the weekends. It really makes me feel like I’m living my life to the fullest. Like when I look back on the week and I can think ‘ah yeah, I really did a lot this week! I made a lot of good memories!’”

“I get that.” Nene gave a small smile. “It’s better than…sitting at home all day.”

“Right? I wouldn’t wanna trade it for anything!” Saki turned back to the screen, finding herself staring at an error message. “Oh, I don’t think it’s working.”

“Oh, this is the channel for the drone, but it’s not flying right now…you probably wanted the other camera’s feed.” Nene took the mouse again. “Let me change it over for you…hang on…”

“Oh, thank you!” How many cameras did Rui even have…? The image flipped to an overhead view of the city, as if taken from the top of a very tall building. Saki couldn’t even begin to imagine how he had managed to get a camera there. But, more importantly- “Oh no…it seems even worse now.”

“It’s…big,” Nene said.

“It- has to stop growing eventually, right?” Saki asked, watching the shadows on the screen. “I mean, it’s not like it’s gonna get to the point it’ll be completely covering Tokyo, right? Someone would do something about it before it got that bad.”

“Mm, probably.” But Nene sounded as unsure as Saki felt. “Can- stuff like this be attacked with non-magical stuff? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure Rui would give you some explosives if you wanted…”

“It depends on the type and the level, but usually not.” Saki looked at the shadows again and sighed. “Half the time I feel like I can’t even touch this one with magic. It’s like it’s different every time I see it. But even when it seems easy, I’m still not entirely convinced it’s actually…gone.”

“Are you sure it’s all the same thing?”

“It- feels like it?” That was probably a stupid response, but she didn’t have another way to explain it. The distinct but familiar emotions that popped up during each fight. “Can I zoom out on here? Maybe I can get a better image further back.”

“I think that’s as far as it goes, but the camera can be moved left and right slightly.”

“Doesn’t it look kinda like they’re all- connected to something?” Saki pointed at one of the thinner strands of shadow, tracing it back as far as she could see. They all seemed to be going the same direction. “Maybe there’s a power source! All the other bits might be feeding off that, and that’s why some of them are stronger than others.”

“That would make sense,” Nene said. “It’s kind of like a video game boss…”

“Right? So if we can just figure out the location-”

Saki’s phone shook against the table.

Monster energy detected nearby! Estimated danger level: 2! Please take care in surrounding areas!
Due to current circumstances, please be aware that reported danger levels may be inaccurate.

“I bet it’s that one there!” Saki pointed at the screen, finger next to a slender shadow a couple of streets away. “Actually, I’m surprised I made it this far through today without getting any alerts until now, haha…”

“Are you going to go…?” Nene asked. “Isn’t there a risk you’ll get swarmed?”

“Nah, I think it should be fine!” Saki rose up, leaving the script on the box behind her. “If it says Level2, there’s a good chance it’s just that. I think the app is just kinda overrun at this moment so the readings are a bit less accurate, but it’s usually not- ah, oh no!”

“What is it?”

“I left my pendant at home!” Saki looked around her bag one more time, but she knew it wasn’t there. “Oh my god, I can’t believe it…I took it out to put in my work bag but then I must’ve forgotten to put it back in…ahhh, I’m gonna have to run all the way home…seriously, what’s wrong with me…”

“Oh…you can’t transform without it, right?” Nene asked, and Saki shook her head.

“It’s fine, I’ll just run super fast!” Saki tucked her bag over her shoulder, making sure her shoes were secured properly to get ready for the sprint. “If you see the others, can you tell them about the map thing? Maybe we can put an end to this soon!”

“Oh, but- um, okay…”

Nene didn’t expand on whatever it was she was going to say, so Saki waved her goodbye and took off out the door. This was seriously unprofessionalism at its worst. Thinking about there being an ongoing call happening and her letting people get injured because of being careless with her things…she should be kicked off magical duties just for that. Usually it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but lately it felt like she was the only one attending calls. Was it going to be like it had been at her work all over again…? Either way, she had to hurry.

Saki jogged lightly on her feet as she waited for the crossing lights to change, ignoring the looks of passersby. A light rain was starting, but she’d fought in worse. The alert was still going, which was both reassuring and very concerning. She still had time, but also she had no time at all. So long as Tsukasa or her parents weren’t home, she could just run straight to her room, grab her pendant and head straight to the-

“Saki?”

“Ichi?” Saki stopped, turning around to see both Shiho and Ichika standing across from her. They looked like they might be on the way back from somewhere. Somewhere without her? “What’re you guys up to? Where’s Hona?”

“She’s, um…not very well,” Ichika said, not meeting her eyes. Something felt off. “We went to grab some supplies from the music shop. We’re going to see Honami now.”

“Oh! I didn’t know that. I didn’t…see any messages in the group chat.” Saki checked the countdown behind her. Ten seconds left.

“You’ve been busy lately,” Shiho said.

“Mm, we thought you might…want some space,” Ichika added. Saki tried not to frown.

“It’s not like that,” she said. “I mean, yeah I’ve been doing a lot of stuff lately, but I always wanna hang out with you guys!”

“So you’ll come with us today?” Shiho asked. The crossing started to beep.

“I, um- I can’t right now, but…”

“Right,” Shiho said.

“It’s just really bad timing right now!” Had she used that excuse before? “I just have this one super important thing to do but then after that I can totally do whatever you want! I’m not trying to avoid you or anything! Come on, you know that!”

“It’s just…lately it feels like you’re always finding something to do that isn’t spending time with us,” Ichika said quietly. “We thought you might be upset with us or something…”

“No way!” How many seconds did she have left to cross? “If I say I’m okay then I’m okay, right? You guys are- you’re acting kind of like last time when-”

No, there was no point in bringing that up now. It wasn’t even fair that she felt upset to be left out considering she was the one always running away. And they weren’t arguing. They were friends. They were best friends. So why did they both have that look in their eyes? Why hadn’t she been told sooner than Honami was sick? Were they trying to protect her? But she never asked for that.

“...I’m sorry, I really have to go,” Saki said after a slight pause, unable to look at them face on. “I promise I’ll text later. We can- make plans.”

“Okay,” was all Ichika said. Saki ran away.

Why did this feel so bad? Why did she feel so bad? It wasn’t like she had any right to feel this way. She didn’t have a right to feel left out. Her friends were right there and she was the one pushing them away. But that was because they wouldn’t get it. They would worry about her. It would just make everything worse. Even if- this felt bad too. She was causing trouble for people anyway, as much as she’d been trying to avoid it. It always caught up with her eventually.

But- was being a magical girl alone really so dangerous? She’d made it this far. Rui had told her she needed to be stable. But she was stable. She had her friends. She had her family. They were there for her, and they loved her. They wanted nothing but the best for her. They wanted her to be safe.

Saki clenched her fists hard as she ran, and readied herself for a fight.

-

One by the park. One by the mall. Another by the crossing. One more by the school. Level2, Level3, Level3, Level3. It was never ending. Tsukasa spun his staff again, positioning himself for another quick blast towards the edge of the shadow. He’d tried going for the centre, tried attacking from a different angle, tested out different strengths of attack and tried a full speed approach. It was the same every time. The light would hit and send the shadow retreating back to the wall, before it reappeared once more somewhere else. 

There was no way he could save anybody like this. If he wanted to stop it once and for all, he had to find a weak point. But then- what was his plan? That video had shown he couldn’t make any physical contact with the shadow lest he be knocked out. Potentially, anyway. If it was a mental attack, maybe his firm resolve would save him. He had no real reason to feel guilty, so there was nothing the shadow could use against him personally. The main thing was just- understanding the full effects.

Tsukasa hopped down from the wall, waving his spear away. There was no point transforming back since he’d likely just be needed again in a few moments anyway. Besides, it wasn’t exactly strange for magical girls to visit civilian houses to assist with different issues residents might have. Shiho and Ichika were waiting for him outside, standing near the front door to avoid the rain.

“How is she?” Tsukasa asked, hurrying up beside them. “Is she awake yet?”

“She woke up a little bit just before,” Ichika said. “But she’s…kind of sleepy. She wasn’t responding to anything we were saying.”

“It’s almost like someone suffering from shock,” Shiho said, not looking at either of them as she leaned against the bricks. “We can lead her out of her bed and get her to drink and eat, but she can barely lift her head up. I don’t think she even knew we were there, honestly.”

“But it’s a good sign she’s awake, right?” Tsukasa asked. “Even if we can’t ask her anything.”

Shiho still didn’t look up. “At the very least, it seems to be less severe than the effects we saw before.”

“Do you think it’s…permanent?” Ichika asked. “I mean, how do you cure something that isn’t physical…? I’ve never seen Honami like that before.”

“She’s always been the most conscious about her own decisions,” Shiho said. “Well, I don’t know if that makes her a more likely target or if she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s too much we don’t know to really understand.”

“But that first time, it started aiming for Honami then too,” Tsukasa said, frowning as he thought back to the fight in the alleyway by the rehearsal rooms. “Do you think it goes for those who have a weaker mental constitution? Maybe that makes it more likely to make them feel guilty.”

“Is it making people feel guilty, or just drawing on whatever’s naturally there?” Shiho asked, then finally looked up to meet his eyes. “You look like you’re thinking of going to fight it.”

“I’m a stage performer!” Tsukasa slammed a hand to his chest to emphasise the point.

“Uh, so-”

“I have a lot of mental strength,” he continued. “I can’t worry about missing a line or a cue. The trick is just quick recovery and to keep going! The show must always go on!”

“Which would be great if you were going up against a slightly cold audience, but this is a supernatural being that’s destroying the city,” Shiho said. “If you’re really going to be persistent about this, then you need to find a team. Or at the very least, one other person to cover your back. Don’t you have any connections? People you know?”

“Well, my ideal team would be my troupe members, but none of them have access to magic as far as I know,” Tsukasa said thoughtfully. “Rui has access to explosives though, which might actually be more efficient…”

“A melee fighter would be best for you,” Shiho continued. “Someone to attack up close whilst you attack from a distance. That way you can cover both sides.”

“Would that be useful for this situation though?” Ichika frowned. “If the shadow can’t be touched, having someone fighting up close might be dangerous.”

“I don’t sit back and attack from the sidelines anyway! If I had a partner, I would be the one protecting them, not the other way around!” Tsukasa paused, glancing up at the grey clouds. “Actually- that reminds me. When you meet up with Saki later, can you tell her to keep safe and stay inside? I would ask her myself, but I get the feeling she has something she doesn’t want to talk about with me at the moment.”

“With Saki?” Ichika asked, and looked at Shiho.

“I feel bad lying, but there’s no way I can tell her right now,” he continued. “If I could just ask you to watch over her for now, just whilst I sort everything out…I’m sorry, I know that’s selfish…”

“We didn’t have any plans to meet up with Saki later,” Ichika said. “Did you want us to?”

“What?” Tsukasa blinked. “You’re going to the mall together later.”

“No we’re not?”

“She’s been too busy to spend time with us lately,” Shiho added. "We ran into her before and she said she was busy. She seemed like she was in a rush."

“But she’s always with you! She told me you guys were going out later! And yesterday too?”

“We didn’t see her yesterday…” Ichika said.

“L-last week?”

“Hardly…”

Tsukasa looked to Shiho to see if the response was any different, but she was frowning too. Could it have been just Honami? No, she had been at home the past few days, and it wasn’t like she was in any state to be texting. But- Saki had definitely said she was with her friends. A last minute change of plans? But without them even knowing? Tsukasa grabbed his phone, swiping past the alert screen to get to his contacts. It took five rings before she picked up.

"Saki! Where are you right now?!”

“What?” Her voice was slightly muffled, as if she was moving whilst talking. “I’m at home?”

“What about later?!”

“I told you, I’m going out-”

“Where? With who?”

“Huh? I- why are you asking? Did something happen?”

“I’m coming home now!” Tsukasa gave a single nod to the other two before he set off, gripping his phone tight. “I’ll be home shortly so don’t go anywhere, okay?”

“Wait, no, Tsukasa- you don’t need to-” There was a crack over the line that only made him run faster. “It’s fine, I’m telling you-”

“I’ll see you in five minutes!” he yelled before ending the phone call. How could he have been so foolish? He should’ve been checking on her more, making sure she was somewhere safe- no, but he’d assumed she was simply at work or rehearsing with her friends…there was no reason to think she was anywhere near harm’s way. And now that he thought about it more, why had she been at the theme park the other day? The only reasonable explanation was that she was planning some kind of birthday surprise for him, but his birthday was over seven months away, so actually that didn’t make any sense at all.

He transformed back as he rounded the corner to his house, the rainy streets empty. Possibly a new record time. But of course, this was an unheard of situation. Not knowing the whereabouts of his sister, the city teeming with dangerous energy- Tsukasa readied himself as he threw back the door, ready for the worst-

And Saki was right there in the front room, sitting on the couch.

“Oh…you’re here.” Tsukasa let his shoulders drop, stalling in the entryway. Nothing seemed out of place. There was no danger. Everything was normal.

“I told you I was,” Saki said, sitting with her back very straight against the sofa. The TV wasn’t on, and Tsukasa couldn’t see anything she might’ve been doing before his arrival. “What’s wrong with you? Did something happen?”

“I…” Tsukasa refocused, stepping into the room. “You said you were going out with your friends later!”

“Yeah, I am!”

“Then why did they say you didn’t have any plans to meet up?!”

“Huh?” Saki’s eyes widened a little. “W-why were you talking to my friends?”

“N-no, I wasn’t, I just…ran into them and they happened to mention it, okay?” That technically wasn’t a lie.

“I just haven’t asked them yet.” Saki crossed her arms. “I don’t get why it’s such a big deal. Why are you so bothered about where I am? Even now…”

For a second it felt like he was being unfair, that he was accusing his sister of lying when there was nothing to prove it. But, then- there was still that day she had been at PXL. Even his own friends hadn’t mentioned anything about that. “It’s just- I’m worried because I think you’re not being honest with me! Is it something you can’t tell me? Are you in danger?”

“Of course not! What’re you even saying right now?

“Then- are you really going out with your friends later?”

“Yes!”

“So if I call them later you’ll be with them?”

“Oh my gosh, why are you acting like this?” Saki stood up to face him. “You’re being ridiculous!”

“They said you’ve been avoiding them!” Tsukasa exclaimed, and Saki almost seemed to flinch. “Why haven’t you been going to rehearsals?”

“I- why are you talking about me behind my back to my friends?”

“I’m not! I mean- okay maybe I am! But it’s just because I’m worried about you! And they are too.”

“Well- you don’t need to be. I’m not asking you to. Besides, aren’t you the one who’s never at show rehearsal anymore?”

“Who told you that?! You were speaking to my friends too?”

“Well you did it first!”

“How do you know that?!” Hold on, he was getting too loud. “No- look, I- I just don’t want you to get hurt. It’s really dangerous out there and I don’t like not knowing where you are.”

“You always talk about me like I can’t take care of myself,” Saki said, looking away. “What’s so dangerous for me that isn’t dangerous for you? It’s not like you’re always at home. You go out all the time. Maybe I have a right to be worried about you.”

“No, that’s different. You could get sick, or hurt, or- something bad could happen. Your body is more vulnerable than most people’s! You have to be careful!”

“Ahh, please, gosh, just- stop treating me like I’m so- fragile!” Saki spun around. “You don’t even know- I mean, you don’t- ugh, you just don’t get it! Forget it! I don’t wanna talk to you anymore!”

“Huh- Saki- where are you going?” Tsukasa asked as Saki stormed past him, grabbing her things from the doorway. 

“I’m going out! Because I can look after myself and I don’t need you to always worry about me, okay?!” She put one hand on the door before hesitating and looking back at him. “Okay, fine! I’m going to the mall to get bubble tea! Don’t follow me!”

“Saki-!”

But she was already slamming the door behind her. Tsukasa grit his teeth, taking a step towards the door before taking another one back. She asked him not to follow. But he couldn’t just let her go. But she was mad at him. But he was right! But also he was lying to her. He made it to the doorway before he turned back, taking a heavy seat on the sofa and gripping his head in his hands. 

Later, he’d explain himself properly later. She was sure to understand once she was aware of the situation they were in. But for now, he would have to deal with the temporary pain of his sister being mad at him in order to protect her. Once he defeated that shadow, everything would be okay again. That was all he had to do. It would be over soon.

Chapter Text

“Tsukasa is so so so so stupid!”

“Yeah, join the club,” Nene said from the edge of the stage. Her script was abandoned to the side of her, coloured tabs still sticking out from the pages. Not that it was really needed, considering they weren’t rehearsing today. Saki supposed it was probably just second-nature for them to show up to practise even when the scheduled event had finished. She did the same thing after a show with her friends.

“Are you fighting with Tsukasa, Saki?” Emu asked, flipping up from her stretch. “Did he say something mean?”

“No, he’s just-” Saki bit her lip. “He’s just so overbearing! And I know it’s not fair of me to say that because he’s just worried about me but I don’t want him to be! I just don’t get why he’s freaking out so much all of a sudden.”

“Tsukasa really likes freaking out! He’s pretty good at it!”

“He keeps saying I’m not safe, but I’m way safer than he is,” Saki said, frowning as she fiddled with the dial of her hammer. “At least I can protect myself! What does he have?”

“Maybe he can scare off danger by yelling at it,” Nene suggested.

“He could be like one of those birds! You know those really big ones that live in the jungle that always go chichichiwoowoo?” Emu grinned for a moment, then sat back with a subdued smile. “I really wish we could do our show together today. Everyone is scared and sad at the moment and I think it would really really cheer them up!”

“It is a shame,” Rui said, laptop and various other wires set up across the bench he was sitting on. “But we can always perform it another time. We don’t want to endanger anyone by encouraging a large audience to gather. And Tsukasa is still busy at the moment, too.”

“Like he has a right to chastise me for being out all the time when he does the exact same thing,” Saki said, pouting again. “To be honest, I’m kind of worried about him too! He’s the type to run straight into danger without thinking about the consequences…I have no idea what he might get up to without anyone holding him back.”

“Well, if the enemy really feeds off negative emotion, Tsukasa will probably be fine,” Nene said, tapping at her phone. “He’s too stupid to feel sad. Oh, no offense to your brother, Saki…”

“The thing is, I feel like I’m pretty safe,” Saki said. “Like, I’m still annoyed and I wish we didn’t argue, but I don’t think any monster would be able to mess with my head too much. I’m pretty sure I’ve been through worse already, haha.”

“If it makes people sad, then I think the park is a really good place for people to go!” Emu said, bouncing across the stage. “We could put on a super big show to cheer everyone up, and then even if the spooky shadow tried super hard to make everyone sad, he wouldn’t be able to!”

“But that would still involve a big audience…” Nene said.

“Then let’s put it on a super big screen and show it to everyone in the city!”

“I don’t think it would be that hard to set up,” Rui said thoughtfully. “Lots of the advertising screens they use in the city have surprisingly weak security.”

“Great, we can become the heroes the city needs with cybercrime,” Nene muttered. “Should I even ask what you’re doing right now?”

“Don’t worry, it’s perfectly legal,” Rui said.

“Don’t say that like it’s a normal answer…”

Emu jumped from the stage to lean over Rui’s shoulder. “Oooh, we’re so high up! No way, is that the park there? It looks so tiny!”

“Oh, is that the drone again?” Saki waved her hammer away as she joined to watch the video playing on the screen. “Ahh, the shadows are still so big…”

“But something looks different,” Rui said, flying the drone to the left. “The branches seem less spread out. They usually stretch all the way to here, but today they’re far more centralised.”

“Maybe it’s getting weaker?” Saki suggested. “It must have a limit eventually, right? Maybe now’s a good time for me to go attack!”

“Are you really going to go all alone, Saki?” Emu asked, eyes big as she stared straight through her. “We could help you if you want! I could do another spinning spiral fire blast attack!” 

“No, that’s- too dangerous.” Though that wasn’t the only reason. She had to go alone, because that was the only way to prove to herself that she should. No more running away, no more letting everything happen without her. She could prove it to her friends and Tsukasa too. Even if- they’d have no idea. “I’ll spend a few more days training and then-”

A sharp noise cut through the air as Saki felt her phone vibrate. Another alert, but- this one wasn’t just on her phone. That was the noise for a general emergency alert. Something like an earthquake, a flood, a landslide-

WARNING: Level 4 magical disturbance detected. Please stay inside until further notice. Qualified personnel should report to the scene if safe to do so. 

“Level4…” Saki stared at her phone and swallowed. Maybe she didn’t have a few more days. “Should I…go?”

“Aren’t the higher levels usually reserved for magical girls with much more experience?” Nene asked. “You going would be kind of like sending a newbie into the final boss without any prep.”

“I know, but…I don’t know who else is left,” Saki said sullenly, thinking of all the scenes she’d arrived at recently to find herself alone. The posts on social media asking where their favourite fighter had gone, and the videos of girls collapsing to the ground surrounded by darkness. “And it’s not even that far from here, it’s- ah!”

“What is it?” Rui asked.

“It’s at the mall!” Saki exclaimed. “Tsukasa thinks I’m at the mall! Oh no, what if he goes there looking for me?! I have to go now!”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Rui asked. His expression was unusually serious. “We still don’t fully understand the enemy we’re up against.”

“I know, but- this is my fault anyway!” Saki pressed her eyes shut. “I’m always lying to him so he’s worried about me and now he’s gonna go looking for me even when it’s super dangerous because I lied to him again! I have to make sure he’s safe!”

“We’ll just- message him, tell him with we’re with you, we’ll ask him not to go-” Nene tried, but Saki shook her head.

“Even if you tell him, he won’t believe me now. I’ve lied to him so much lately. And- you know how my brother is…” By the time she called him up, he’d probably already be in the midst of danger. There was a chance he was even already there. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

“We’ll be watching from here,” Rui said. “Please try to stay safe. Keep your mental state in mind.”

“You can do it, Saki!” Emu cheered. “Just powpowpow and zamzamzam and I’m sure everything will be okay!”

Everything would be okay. Saki clenched her fists as she ran, not caring who saw her in her magical state. Even if she felt weak, she had to be strong. She couldn't let life pass her by anymore. It was for her to do, and her alone. The hospital bed was gone. The wires and the tears were gone. The world was so big and she had to be a part of it no matter what. This was her second chance. It was her only chance.

The outside of the mall was crowded with people by the time she arrived. Saki breathed hard as she surveyed the scene, trying to stay calm. Some police tape by the doors, some officers helping evacuate the crowds. A couple low-level magical girls tending to those collapsed on the floor. Something bad had already happened. It was probably only going to get worse.

For a moment, Saki hesitated, body unwilling to take another step forward. Maybe someone had stopped Tsukasa. There was no way they would just let a random civilian run past all this security, and as strong as Tsukasa was, he couldn’t break free from multiple people’s grasp. If she ran in, it could be for nothing.

But then she heard the voice. It was muffled by the walls and obscured by distance, but there was definitely someone yelling inside. And she was off running again.

“Wait, it’s not safe-!” someone called from behind her. “You can’t go alone!”

But I’ve done that more times than you could imagine, Saki thought as she slid under the barricade, racing towards the door. I didn’t have a choice then, and I don’t have a choice now. But I won’t be saved this time. This time, I’m the one who will…!

She kept running, scanning the empty area around the abandoned shops and making sure there was nothing unusual beneath her feet or lurking to the side. It was so dark, as if she had stepped into the middle of the night. The ground seemed to be shaking a little, unsteady beneath her feet. But she had to stay calm, and happy. She would win and it would be okay. She’d tell Tsukasa and he’d be okay. She’d keep fighting and she’d be okay. Everything would- everything had to be-

“Saki-!”

She changed direction, sprinting up the stopped escalators. Over the railings, the floor was almost completely black, as if something was blocking any and all light. Really stupid, really stupid Tsukasa, why did he have to come here looking for her? Even after she told him not to follow her. Now he was in danger too, and that was her fault-

“Saki, are you here? Saki!”

The footsteps weren’t too far away. Saki rushed past the frozen doors of the shops, heading to one of the store rooms at the back. This definitely didn’t feel like a safe place to be, considering the dim lighting and lack of places to hide, but that was probably why he was here. There was another tremor. 

“Excuse me!” The voice called out from behind her, and Saki spun around, ready to grab her brother and lead him away from the scene, but there was someone else standing there. Another- magical girl? But that voice, Saki could’ve sworn… “Sorry, but have you seen my sister? She’s a little shorter than me, usually has her hair in pigtails but apparently there’s a new trend lately so she might only be wearing one side up…I don’t even know if she’s here, but I don’t know where else to look…”

…Huh?

Huh??????

“Tsukasa?!”

“What?” The figure- Tsukasa spun back around, blinking with wide, panicked eyes. The same eyes Saki knew. “What- you-”

“Tsukasa- it’s me!” Oh god, of course, it was all making sense now- no, but, what- “It’s me, I’m fine, it’s okay, don’t worry- I-”

And the ground shook again, stronger this time. Saki held out her hands to steady herself, summoning her hammer into her palm. Tsukasa had his own weapon at the ready- how long had he been doing this? Was he alone too-?

“You need to leave!” he yelled. “It’s too dangerous!”

“You’re the one who ran in here first!”

“I was looking for you!”

“That’s the reason I’m here too! And besides, I never asked you to-”

A more violent shake made her stumble again, and Saki turned around to see a dark shape on the floor moving towards her with the same viscosity of honey. Or, no, maybe thinner than that- more like, blood, or something- no, she couldn’t think about that. Good thoughts. Positive thoughts. Why was Tsukasa still here-?

“It doesn’t usually shake like that,” Tsukasa said, running up beside her. “Something’s wrong.”

“What are you doing?” She stared at him. “You need to get away from it, not closer!”

“What? I’m protecting you!”

“No- we- look, we can’t argue, because it’s just going to make everything worse-”

She flinched as Tsukasa shot a blast of light towards the shadow, but it seemed to phase straight through. There was nothing permeable, nothing solid for the attack to collide with. There may as well have been nothing there at all.

“Don’t let it touch you!” Tsukasa called. “It’ll knock you out!”

“But-” Where else was there to go? It was lingering in place, blocking their escape path. The lower floor was already gone. Saki had the unnerving feeling she was being watched. She took a step back, but the wall wasn’t far behind her. Maybe it was just going to keep climbing every floor, swallowing the whole building into complete darkness. And then what? All those people outside? The city? 

Saki fumbled to adjust her settings to the halfway mark, trying a sweep on the patch of shadow closest to her, but it was the same as the attacks Tsukasa was trying. No impact, just like that first fight all those weeks ago, back in the parking lot. But it had been so much smaller then. Could it really have gained that much power in such a short space of time? And now they were both here in front of it, totally powerless. This was her fault. Everything was her fault, again and again-

“Saki-!”

The shadow made a sudden lurch against the ground, leaping to the spot she was standing- or had been standing, before she was pushed out of the way. It was a hard landing, and Saki managed to catch herself before completely falling. Except now Tsukasa was standing in the midst of the darkness. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d told her not to do? And- why were his eyes screwed shut as if something was hurting him?

“Tsukasa-” Saki staggered up, hurrying to her brother’s side to pull him away. “What are you doing? Are you okay? I thought you said it was-”

Before she could even say the word ‘dangerous’, Tsukasa fell forwards, only just managing to catch himself with one hand against the floor. Saki grabbed his arm, trying her best to hold him upright. The light around them was closing in. There was no way they could stay here, but- where else was there to go?

“Tsukasa, can you hear me?” Saki tried, tugging his arm behind her shoulder. “We have to leave! It’s too dangerous here, okay? Tsukasa?”

“S-sorry…”

“No, don’t worry about that, it’s fine.” It wasn’t fine. She took a shaky step forwards, trying not to think of what was behind her. Her muscles strained under the weight of carrying her brother, but if she kept focused, she could do it.

“You should go,” Tsukasa said, and his voice was quiet in a way that scared Saki. “Leave me here.”

“No- way!” She stepped over a box, keeping her hand firmly gripped on Tsukasa’s arm. “You always- carried me when we were younger. It’s- my turn now.”

“No,” he tried to say, but Saki kept moving, jaw clenched as she moved towards the only doorway still open. She knew there was no way it could open into an escape route, but the dismay still stung as she stepped into another closed off, even smaller room. Not even a window. Could she call for help? Send an alert for medics? But that would take too long. Maybe she could ask her friends, but- they weren’t here now. She couldn’t even conjure them up inside her thoughts because of that disappointment and uncertainty she had seen in their eyes back at the traffic lights.

There was nobody left. No time remaining. Saki managed to reach a corner before dropping down, breathing hard as she watched the darkness start to spread around the doorway she had just entered. Maybe if she had been stronger, she could have taken Tsukasa somewhere safer. Maybe if she had been stronger, none of this would have ever happened in the first place.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?” Saki glanced down to where Tsukasa was slumped against her side, his eyes were still shut as if fighting off a wave of pain. 

“This is my fault. I should’ve…done better. I couldn’t protect you, again.”

“No, that’s not-” It was getting closer again, seeking them out. “That’s not true-”

“This…should’ve been my opportunity to make everything right. But I led you straight into danger.” His voice sounded choked. “What kind of big brother am I?”

“Don’t say that, it’s-” Saki pulled him back closer against the wall, tucking her legs closer to her body as the shadow crept closer. “You have nothing to apologise for, okay? It’s fine. We’ll be okay.”

Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad, if she just kept positive. But- what positive thoughts did she have right now? Tsukasa had risked his life to save her, and she had all but thrown it back in his face. Time and time again. That was all she could do. Take everyone’s kindness and give nothing but pain back in return. 

“This is my fault,” Saki said, eyes stinging as she watched the darkness reach her fingertips. “I wanted to do things right but it ended up the same way it always does. I got mad but I was the one lying to you. I’m the reason we’re here. I’m the reason everything is going wrong.”

Not that it mattered now anyway. Saki hissed as the shadow wrapped around her, a terrible feeling shuddering along her spine up into her chest, in her throat, around her temples and her eyes. It was like every bad memory and thought was being dragged out of her, ripped out from the places she normally stored them and spilling out into the front of her thoughts. Let’s go out today I’m sick again. Let’s have a fun time I’m sick again. Let’s go live our lives I’m sick again. They’d had a right to leave her behind. Of course they wanted a chance to enjoy life without her burden. Forcing her way back in, thinking she was entitled to their friendship after causing so many problems…that was so unforgivable. Everyone’s lives were infinitely better without her, so why was she still-

“Saki- it’s not your fault.” Tsukasa’s grip tightened just a little around her arm. “I’m the one who was too weak to save you.”

It felt like that past sadness had cracked open again, unstoppable as it spilled out of her. “No. You can’t say that. I made you worry about me. I'm always…making you worry about me. You wouldn’t have run into danger if it wasn’t for me. I keep getting in the way. I’m the reason everything has always been hard. Every holiday, every birthday, everything…good. I just- ruin it.”

It always snuck up on her back then. One moment she was sure she was fine and the next she’d be struggling to breathe, knees on the floor, pain in her bones. Almost the same as right now. And same as now, pretty much every time, Tsukasa had been there at her side. Helping her up, calling their parents. He’d let her lean against him in the car. Gave her his jacket when she shivered. He never showed it, but it must’ve been scary for him. He’d seen her fall more times than she could count. And here she was, putting herself in harm’s way yet again. That was so- terrible. She was so awful.

“Saki, you don't…”

“I don’t want you to always be so worried about me.” She felt like she wanted to cry, but pressed her eyes shut to avoid the tears. Not in front of Tsukasa. She had to stay strong. “I want you to live your life without burdening yourself with me. I don’t want to keep holding you back. You deserve so much more…so much more than all of my problems…”

“But I don’t want to live my life without you,” Tsukasa replied with barely a pause. “I’m happy to do it for you. I’m happy if I know you’re okay.”

“But can't you be a little more- selfish?” She brushed the tears away before they could hit her cheeks. “I want you to care about yourself. I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want you to hide your problems from me…”

But even as she was saying it, she was sure she could taste the irony behind her words. Wasn’t that just the same he was always saying to her? Wanting her to be okay, wanting to feel okay with being honest about the things troubling her. 

“I should’ve told you,” Tsukasa said, his voice loud enough now that she didn’t have to strain her ears to hear. “That was careless of me. It’s not- it’s not because I don’t trust you. I just- don’t trust myself. I wanted to wait until I knew I could protect you for certain. Not- like this.”

“This isn’t what you should be doing. You should be living your own life.” She shivered as a cold feeling ran up her spine. “You never got a normal childhood because of me. You spent so much time just trying to keep me happy. It wasn’t fair. You shouldn’t have had to do that…”

He’d spent his tenth birthday in hospital with her. They’d been planning to visit the amusement park together but she’d ended up sick the day before. He’d opened his presents, sat next to her bed and excitedly shown her every toy and described every way it could become a prop for their next show. She’d nodded along and smiled and tried not to cry at the thought of him being forced to be here instead of somewhere fun. Tried not to dwell too much on the question of if he was there because he asked to be or if their parents just didn’t want to leave him alone on his birthday two years in a row.

“It’s so- frustrating. I’m always so useless, forcing everyone from their lives to take care of me. I caused problems for you. I caused problems for my friends. Even now- they’re upset because of me, again. I used to think- back then, I- I used to wonder, maybe it would’ve been better if I just…”

It had always been like that. So many days spent sitting in a white room. He’d read her stories. Sing songs. Make up plays. If she’d wanted to sleep he’d stay at her side whilst she slept. It must’ve been so boring. All the things he could’ve been doing, and all the things he probably wanted to do-

“Saki!” A hand reached out and clasped around her own, squeezing tight. “You’re wrong! I wanted to do all those things. I never regretted anything. You never caused me any trouble! Not- not now, not ever!”

He always spoke with such conviction. Somehow, it always felt like he was telling the truth when he said those things. That night, too. Sitting alone in the parking lot underneath a dark sky, goosebumps on her skin. 

“I haven’t been a good enough brother to you,” he continued. “I should’ve been there for you. I should’ve done more to stop all the things that were hurting you.”

“All you’ve ever done is be there for me,” Saki said quietly. “You’re one of the only things that makes me feel okay.”

“But that night, before- I felt so useless,” he said. “I couldn’t do anything. You were crying and there was nothing I could do. I kept thinking, I wish I could put out the fire, I wish I could be the hero you need, I wish I could make you feel better- but I couldn’t do anything. And even now, even with my powers, I still failed you.”

“No.” Saki tried to shake her head. “You’re wrong. You’re so wrong. You…”

It was like being wrenched out from freezing water, gasping in air at the feeling of the warm arms wrapping around her and pulling her tight. Suddenly the sirens didn’t seem so loud and the pain not as cutting.

“Are you okay?! Does it hurt?” Tsukasa tried to move back from the hug to check on her, but she had shaken her head and clung on like she would die if she let go. “I’m sorry, I should’ve asked Mom to stay overnight, or maybe, if I’d have stayed up later I would’ve seen the fire on the news and been able to wake them to get here earlier-”

It was so absurd for him to be apologising for not being at an incident he didn’t know would happen. So much so that she almost laughed, if not for the unstoppable tears rolling down her face. She knew she had to put on a brave face, to act like it didn’t bother her and that everything was okay, but- she was tired. And it was so cold.

“Tsukasa-” She cried against his shoulder, clutching tight. “It’s scary. It’s so scary. It hurts. I don’t wanna do it. I don’t wanna do it anymore. It’s so scary. I was so scared. I’m- I…”

“I know sometimes I get concerned about you,” Tsukasa spoke, pulling her away from the painful memory. “And maybe I can be overbearing, I won’t deny that! But it’s not because I don’t believe in you. I know you’re capable! I know you’re strong. Much more than I can be! But- even still, I’m sorry! I’ll keep wanting to protect you, because I’m your big brother and I always will be. And everyone- we’re not here because we feel we have to be, but because we want to be! Do you understand, Saki? Even if you become the most powerful magical girl in all of the universe, I’m still going to be there to check if you’re okay!”

“What are you saying…? That’s not gonna happen…” Saki let her tears fall freely as she stared at the ground, the hollow feeling wavering in her chest as she laughed. The shadow was rippling against the floor, almost unsure of where to go. And it wasn’t climbing any higher against her fingertips. 

“Well, just in case it does- I’ll be there!”

“I just want you to be okay,” Saki murmured. “You want me to be happy but I’m not gonna be happy if you keep getting hurt trying to protect me. You matter too, okay? Don’t keep putting yourself second. Don’t ruin your life for my sake. I don’t want that. I never wanted that.”

“I’m not-”

“You hurt your arm.”

“It wasn’t a big deal.”

“That doesn’t matter.” She sniffed. “It’s a big deal to me.”

It was something she was sure she knew but could never prove, the way that he never told her if something was wrong to its full extent. It was always downplaying, brushing it off, changing the topic. It wasn’t just one hidden injury. It was everything. Sometimes she was certain it wasn’t just her that he was being dishonest with, but himself too. It really wasn’t a problem to him, but it should’ve been.

“If you’re hurt, I want you to tell me. If you don’t feel well then tell me. If you’re sad or unhappy, tell me.” Saki squeezed his hand. “I’ll tell you too, okay? Promise. I promise. So long as you’re honest with me.”

“Saki…” His eyes shone as he looked at her, before he nodded firmly. “Of course! I promise, I’ll never lie to you ever again. My dear precious little sister-!”

She leaned forwards to wrap her arms around him, but he grabbed her into a hug before she could even raise her arms. It was just like before, all those murky and heavy feelings being moved aside to make space for warmth and love. Last time- those words he had said to her last time-

“It’s okay now, you’re safe,” he said, pulling her closer. “I’m here. You’re not-”

I’m not-

That was the end of the dream she had forgotten about. The part she thought she didn’t want to remember. That memory was one she’d always felt so guilty about, but- more than that- she’d felt so relieved. So grateful for the comfort, and the love. A reminder of all the people who had helped her, all her friends, and, of course, always, her brother.

“You’re not alone anymore.”

She’d been so used to pretending, but she didn’t have to pretend anymore. Her life was full of the people she had missed. There was no need to imagine what things Ichika, Honami, Shiho would say to her- they were here now. And Tsukasa had never left her side, even when she was away from home for so long. She wasn’t alone. She didn’t have to be alone.

Saki smiled, letting the cold melt away from her spine as she hugged her brother tighter, focusing as much as she could on that grateful feeling. She couldn’t live her life plagued with guilt for receiving love. She just had to- accept it. No more forcing those thoughts away or pretending. It wasn’t easy, but it was better.

“Thank you, Tsukasa,” Saki said. “I always feel stronger knowing you’re there.”

“Yeah, me too. So long as I know you’re okay, I can do anything!”

“Then maybe you can become the most powerful magical girl in the universe instead,” Saki said. “I still have to go pro with the others, remember?”

“That’s right…but I can’t forget my dream of becoming a star also. Maybe we can share?”

Saki laughed. “Maybe.” 

There was a flash of light, and Saki sat back, noticing the area around them was no longer filled with darkness. It was still there, but- it didn’t seem to be touching them anymore. Well, there was probably nothing left to draw out from them anymore. And even the thought of it didn’t bother her as much now. Somehow she felt that something had changed. Like that block that had previously existed was gone.

“Is it…over?” Saki asked, but even if the shadow was retreating back from them, it was still there, and there were still people outside. She glanced at Tsukasa. “Are you okay?”

“If my dear little sister is okay, then nothing can defeat me!” Tsukasa jumped up, calling his staff back into his hand. Now she could look properly, it fit his personality perfectly. Not that Saki would have ever imagined her brother as a magical girl, but he looked exactly like she would have expected. Bright and full of energy, extending one hand out to her. Just the same as she’d always known. “Then, Saki- will you help me finish this fight?”

She nodded, letting him help her up. “Of course!”

“It’s definitely a formidable enemy,” Tsukasa said, watching with a frown as the shadow slunk back. “I never imagined something that fed on negative emotions could be so powerful.”

“Ah, so that’s how it works…Rui was right after all…”

“Yeah, that’s right- wait, Rui? What?” 

“...Ah.” Right, they hadn’t talked about everything yet. “I’ll…um, leave that for later. Wait, Tsukasa, it’s moving the other way now!”

The shadow was slinking back, moving towards the door to go into the main area of the mall. Saki grabbed her hammer as the ground shook. Tsukasa shot at it again, but it seemed to warp around the blast and move away unharmed. 

“It’s so annoying!” he yelled, trying another shot aimed towards the edge of the wall. It moved again, contorting away. “At least before I could usually hit it…”

“But before your attacks were going straight through,” Saki pointed out. “It has to avoid you now, so maybe its defenses have come down?”

“Ohh, true! Could we try attacking at different angles then? What’s the range of your weapon?”

“Not…enough.” Saki made a face. “I mean, I can turn it up but then I might fly through the wall with the recoil, and last time that happened it really wasn’t fun…”

“Right, right…what?”

“But we can’t let it go outside. There’s still people out there.” Saki watched for a moment before nodding her head. “I think we should take it to the rooftop. If it’s a shadow, maybe it’ll react to being in light? Even if it’s…pretty dark outside by now…”

It didn’t sound like the best plan, but Tsukasa was already nodding and running ahead, twisting his spear around to shoot at the edges of the mass, forcing it to change direction. It seemed to speed up at the provocation. Or maybe it was- smaller? But comparing its size to what she had seen on the drone camera was kind of difficult. Either way, this felt like the closest she’d been to being able to defeat it once for and all.

“I’ll direct it into a more concentrated spot so you can hit it head on,” Tsukasa called back to her. “If it doesn’t work, I’ll stop it from getting away so we can try again!”

“Understood!” Saki gave a quick salute, following along to the roof stairwell. It was actually kind of fun getting to fight alongside someone else. Devising a plan together and sharing strategies…it kind of put everything into a different light. Maybe she’d misunderstood the reasons teams were usually stronger than solo fighters. It wasn’t just physical strength, but security too. Having someone on her side. Having someone she could help. The task suddenly seemed far less insurmountable.

There were still crowds outside the building. Saki could see them from up on the roof, looking both far away and far too close. At least there seemed to be an empty radius around the building secured by tape and officers, but if the main body was still here, the arms must have been too.

“Wait, Tsukasa, how do we stop it from escaping?” The shadow was slinking over to the edges of the rooftop, as if ready to start dripping down the outside of the building down to everyone below. And if it was intangible, maybe it could pass through the floor? She might’ve not thought this plan out as much as she thought. “What do we do…?”

“No, it’s not going to get away!” Tsukasa’s expression tightened as he grabbed his staff, spinning it around over his head. It was a cool movement, kind of similar to how Honami spun her drumsticks. “We’re not done yet!”

There was a bright flash from the staff, and a blue screen suddenly materialised around them, surrounding the edge of the building as if protected by opaque glass. The shadow pressed up against it, but couldn’t phase through the same way it had with the walls.

“I didn’t know I could do that…” Tsukasa said, then his stunned face quickly switched to pride. “Haha, as expected of me!”

“Amazing, Tsukasa…!” So that was his secondary power…it was even more incredible to see than Saki could’ve imagined. Way better than reading about it in a magazine.

“Ready, Saki?” Tsukasa called to her. “Here’s your five second call! Get ready to take centre stage!”

“Are we performing a show now?” She smiled through her nerves, but maybe they really were. The people below were the audience. This was the grand finale. Soon it would be over and everyone would clap. She’d go out with her friends for cake.

“Action!”

Saki ran forwards, hands gripped tightly around her hammer. It was just like before, fighting on an open rooftop, a strange darkness up ahead. But it was also completely different. Things weren’t the same at all. She wasn’t alone. She was stronger now. She was- lighter. Was this really the same enemy she had fought before? It seemed so tiny now, so much easier to confront. Saki jumped up, feeling herself stall mid-air as if moving in slow motion. And then-

I’m not going to feel bad about it anymore-!

The hammer struck down mid-centre, a loud melody of notes resonating around them. Almost all at once, the shadow exploded into light, a display of bright colours bursting up around them. Saki blinked through the flashes, noticing that the floor beneath them was no longer unnaturally dark. It was- gone? It was really gone?

“Ohh, what a fantastic finale!” Tsukasa landed next to her, grinning as he looked over the scene. “A splendid job, Saki!”

“Is it really over?” Saki looked over her shoulder down at the city and the people below. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but somehow everything seemed lighter than before. Not bright like it was up here, but just- normal. 

“All that’s left now is to bow for the audience!” Tsukasa said, and Saki glanced at the crowds below looking up at them.

“Ahh, that’s kind of embarrassing…we usually just end our performances by waving to everyone…” Saki smiled, then jumped as the ground shook again, though far less violently than it had before.

“There’s probably quite a lot of energy being released right now,” Tsukasa said, jumping up to a higher spot. “We should get to a safe distance just in case.”

“Right…” Saki watched the shimmering light for a moment longer, before realising Tsukasa was now standing at the edge of the rooftop. “Huh? What’re you doing?”

“Hm? I’m leaving. Why? Did you have something left to do?”

“No, I…” Well, if Tsukasa was doing it, it probably wasn’t that unsafe. Which wasn’t something she would usually think, but he seemed pretty confident jumping off wasn’t going to kill him. Besides, there was something telling her she’d be okay. “I’m coming now!”

Still, there was no way she was going to look down to see just how far away the ground was. It probably looked further than it was anyway. Saki kept her head held upright, focusing on the skyline and the buildings ahead. The rain had stopped and it was clear.

“Tonight is really pretty, huh!” Saki said, smiling as she prepared herself to jump. “By the way, I’ve never tried this before!”

“True, the night is so very- wait, what?!”

Saki leapt, eyes on the stars above. And actually- it wasn’t scary at all. She’d been expecting an abrupt tug of gravity downwards, but there was just continued weightlessness, an airy sensation that held her in place. She could stay here, but she was needed on the ground, so that was where she would go. Had it been that easy the entire time? It definitely hadn’t felt that way when she was about to crash into the top of the Wonder Stage after being tossed halfway across the city. But that was different. She was better now. She had someone ready to catch her, even if she wasn’t going to fall.

Saki landed softly on the ground, pigtails dropping back to their normal position. It felt like less than a second before Tsukasa crashed next to her, much faster and harder than her own descent.

“Saki! What are you doing?! Why did you jump if you didn’t know if you could land?”

“I just had a feeling,” she said. “Guess I was right, haha!”

“And you say I shouldn’t be worried…”

“Saki Saki Saki-!” The chirpy voice of Emu caught her attention as the girl bounded over to her, eyes sparkling brightly. So they’d followed her here, even after hearing how dangerous it was? Well, they were Tsukasa’s friends after all. “That was so super cool! You were flying so high and shiny! Wait- oh, I mean- not…Saki! Saki is- the name of a cloud I really like!”

“What are you doing here?” Tsukasa asked, crossing his arms. “This area’s supposed to be cleared.”

“Huh?” Emu blinked, then leaned in, staring directly at Tsukasa with intense focus. “Hmmmmmm…”

“Emu, I told you not to bother them…” Nene’s hand wrapped around Emu’s arm, pulling her back to where she and Rui were standing. He caught Saki’s gaze and nodded in greeting.

“So you’re both here now,” he said, and smiled. Tsukasa spun around.

“Huh? What does that mean?!”

“Wait, no, Rui, what does that mean-” Nene turned pale, eyes flicking back between Saki and Tsukasa with grave recognition. “Rui, what does that mean?!”

“By the way, Miss Shining Bright Sparkling Star, I’m actually a big fan of yours,” Rui said, stepping in front of Tsukasa, who immediately dropped his defensive stance as soon as the word ‘fan’ was spoken. “It’s good to finally meet you in person!”

“What the hell is that name…?” Nene asked, though she sounded too weak to fight.

“Ahh, as expected!” Tsukasa grinned, hands on his hips. “I’m always honoured to meet another adoring fan!” 

“Would it be possible for you to show me one of your very cool signature poses?” Rui asked. “I’ve always wanted to see it in person.”

“Hm, of course!” Tsukasa quickly fell into one of his signature stances, and Saki clapped lightly behind him.

“Oh, it’s Tsukasa!” Emu exclaimed.

“It’s Tsukasa,” Nene confirmed.

“What- no- wh-why do you say that? I could be anyone!”

“No, I really don’t think you could…” Nene sighed, looking at Rui. “How long have you known?”

“You knew?!” Tsukasa cried.

“Hm?” Rui smiled. “No, no. Of course not.”

“You think I can’t tell when you’re lying?!” Tsukasa yelled. Nene shot him a look.

“Can you tell…?”

“I can when he’s making that kind of expression-”

Saki’s attention was pulled away from the conversation, noticing her own friends- or at least, just Ichika and Shiho- standing not too far away. “Um, I’ll leave you guys to sort that out…there’s something I need to do-”

They hadn’t seemed to have noticed her yet, both of their backs turned away. Shiho had her phone held to her ear, speaking firmly to whoever was on the other end.

“No, neither of us have seen her yet…no…no, you shouldn’t do that- I know, but even still-”

“Oh-” Ichika blinked as she caught sight of Saki, something almost star-struck in her eyes. “Um, Miss Magical Girl, thank you for your service-”

“It’s me!” she said before she could stop herself. “It’s- me. It’s Saki. I’m- really really sorry I didn’t tell you guys sooner. I was worried about you, and- about me, and I didn’t want you to think I was in danger or try to stop me but also I don’t want you to think I don’t care about you because I really really do and I-”

Her words were lost as Ichika wrapped her arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug. But- that didn’t make sense. They were supposed to be mad at her, or upset, or-

“Saki…I’m so glad you’re okay…” Ichika said into her shoulder. “We couldn’t get in touch, and Tsukasa said you were here but we couldn’t find you, and that you told him you’d be with us earlier but you weren’t…”

“I…I’m sorry…” Ah, she was tearing up. That was stupid. There wasn’t any reason to cry. They weren’t even angry, they were just relieved she wasn’t hurt. But- maybe that made sense. After all, their friendship had fallen apart once before and managed to come back together. Compared to that, this was probably- nothing. 

“We’re sorry too,” Ichika said, tightening her grip. “We let you down in the past and we’ve been letting you down again now. It’s no wonder you felt like you couldn’t talk to us.”

“But it’s my fault…I didn’t say anything…”

“We were so busy feeling bad about ourselves that we didn’t stop to think how you felt,” Shiho murmured, one hand over the phone. “We left you alone again. You have every right to be angry.”

“I’m not- angry-” Saki pulled back from Ichika, blinking hard. “I just really wanted to talk to you. When I was- back in the hospital, I always thought of you guys. I always tried to think of what you would say. I wished you were there more, and I felt so bad for wanting that, because you were busy, you had lives, and it wasn’t your fault that I didn’t have one-”

“Saki.” Ichika hugged her again, tighter. “I’m sorry.”

They were here now. There was no need to imagine their voices. No need to hide anything. No more pretending. She just wanted to cry. She wanted to cry with her friends. Even if it was a bad memory, it was a memory she wanted. Finally she could be herself, no matter how she looked or what state she was in. 

Saki pulled back from Ichika, sniffing hard as she pressed her palms against her cheeks. “Let’s cry more again later, okay?”

Ichika blinked. “I-if you want?”

“We have to get Shiho and Hona in a group hug too, so yeah!” Saki turned to where Shiho was still talking on the phone. “Is that Hona now?” 

Shiho glanced at her. “Yes, but-”

“Hona!” Saki grabbed for the phone, holding it in front of her face. “It’s me, Saki! You need to know that I’m actually a magical girl and I have been this whole time and that’s why I’ve been avoiding you and it’s not because I hate you or anything like that and also we need to see each other so we can cry!”

She could barely hear Honami’s muffled response of ‘huh, what, Saki-’ before Shiho took the phone back, shooting her a look.

“Try to go easy on her, okay? She’s been- asleep until now.”

“Is she still sick? We should go and see her-”

“She seems to be feeling better now, but I think she should still rest,” Shiho said. “But she keeps saying she’s going to come and meet us. And after that reveal, she’s definitely going to now…”

“Well, she seems okay now that the main body got defeated…” Ichika said. “When there was that blast on the rooftop, all the leg parts vanished too. I guess they were all connected.”

“Hona- got attacked…?”

“It isn’t your fault,” Shiho said firmly. “It was an impossible situation for just one person to manage. The important thing is she’s okay now.” 

“I-if you say so…” Saki glanced around the area, noticing the people who were on the ground before were now sitting up and receiving help from the officers. It didn’t seem like the best situation, but at least they were awake. “Everyone seems to be getting better again…”

“Mm.” Shiho smiled slightly, and looked up to the moon. “She’ll be okay.”

“Um- Saki…” Ichika started. “Do you, um. Know…Star…?”

“I…know.” Saki studied her friends’ faces. “Wait, do you guys know?!”

“I’m surprised it took you this long to find out, honestly,” Shiho said, shaking her head. “He was never really being subtle about it. And I can literally hear him yelling from here…”

“I was too busy worrying about my own identity to see through his,” Saki sulked. “I seriously would’ve said something sooner if I’d have known…well, I guess that means we’re all kind of liars in our way, right?”

“If that’s how you want to describe it…” Shiho said.

“Everyone!” Emu came running back towards, the other three close behind her. “We came up with a really really good idea! Everyone’s super scared and worried at the moment so I think we should put on a show to show everyone that everything’s okay again!”

“It was their idea, not mine,” Nene murmured, gesturing to the proud faces of the other three. “Well, not that I think it’s a completely awful idea…”

“Are you okay?” Tsukasa asked Saki, and she nodded, grinning despite the tears on her cheeks. At least they were starting to dry.

“You want to do a show right now?” Shiho raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you tired? You just defeated a Level4 by yourselves. You could have been seriously injured, or worse.”

“But we weren’t!” Tsukasa exclaimed. “So we should put on a show to celebrate!”

“I think it sounds fun!” Saki said. “We could play the music!”

“Isn’t it too late?” Ichika asked. “I thought the amusement park usually closed around this time.”

“We can use the stage that was set up for the cancelled event,” Rui explained. “Since the cancellation was made last minute, a lot of the equipment had already been set up in advance. It isn’t too far from here, and we already have a plan to set up a screen so people can see without being in the area.”

“I don’t mind helping out, but what songs can we play for your show?” Ichika asked. “Is there some sheet music we can use?”

“You don’t need it!” Saki exclaimed, then reeled back slightly at their bemused faces. “Oh, um, I hope you don’t mind but I kinda let them borrow some of my songs…”

“You’ve been making your own new songs?” Ichika blinked. “That’s- amazing…I didn’t know…”

“Yeah!” Emu grabbed her arm. “Saki’s been our hero! Just like she’s a hero right now too! Super sparkly and wonderhoy!”

“You’ve been the hero?!” Tsukasa asked.

“Not- not really! I was just filling in whenever you weren’t there.” No, that was just making him look more alarmed. “It’s kind of a long story, but-! Yeah, I’m pretty familiar with the script, I guess!”

“Then- you should be the hero!” Tsukasa said suddenly, and Saki stared. “Right? You’ve done more hard work than me, so it’s only right you should take the spotlight if you so choose!”

“Me?”

“I have no issue with that,” Rui said, and Nene nodded.

“I wanna see Saki fly high high high!” Emu cheered. “Let’s all do a show together!”

“Is that really…okay?”

Standing with all these people around her, smiling at her, knowing the person she was but wanting to be there anyway. A magical weapon at her fingertips, a cute dress at her command. Only five years ago, she’d been lying on her side in a hospital bed in an empty room. Not special. Too weak to live a meaningful life. Being a hero, being someone who could help others and stand by herself- that was only something true in her imagination. A daydream after reading magazines. A fantasy after watching a movie. But, maybe- maybe it could be real. Maybe tomorrow didn’t have to be another yesterday.

Ah, that line was almost-

"-Somewhere, at some time, there lived a hero who had the power to light up the sky."

“But when I look around, all the bad guys are here already! They’re gonna push me off! What should I do? Ahhh!”

Saki gasped as Tsukasa mimed falling backwards, teetering on the edge of the sidewalk he was balancing on. 

“But it’s okay! Luckily I do a super cool backflip before anything can happen!” He tried to do a series of spins as they walked, but quickly lost control and nearly veered off onto the road. Their mother’s hand carefully directed him back towards the sidewalk.

“Be careful, you two. You can play but make sure you look where you’re going, okay?”

“We’re being fighters like in the play!” Tsukasa said with a bright grin. “This is a different ending where the bad guy got to the castle first!”

“You really enjoyed the show, didn’t you?” their mother asked with a gentle smile, taking Saki’s hand. “It certainly was very exciting.”

“So exciting!” Saki said. “Is the good guy gonna win in the end, Tsukasa?”

“Yeah, of course! And after that, let’s do an ending where the princess saves the day too! And then- one where the horse saves the day!”

“The horse?” Saki laughed. “What’s that? Sounds fun!”

“Right?” Tsukasa grinned back at her. “We can do a million different endings! Let’s swap the parts around each time so that way we both get to the main character, okay?”

“Okay!” Saki said. “But if I get tired you might have to do more…”

“I can do that! I can do every part if you want! Lemme know if you want me to do a certain story and I’ll do it! I can do any and every show ever! Just watch me!”

“That’s too much, Tsukasa!” Saki laughed, and followed her brother on.

"Are you lost?" asked the hero to a young girl, who shook her head tearfully. "It's okay. If you take my hand, I can take you home again!"

"But isn't the night sky too dark?" the girl asked. "How will you know the way?"

"Don't worry! I can use my light to find the way. We'll fly together through the sky until we find your home!" The hero smiled. "That's something my dear friends taught me how to do. Because of them, I’ll never be lost!"

“A bird?” Ichika tried.

“I think it’s a dog,” Honami said.

“I have no idea what it’s supposed to be,” Shiho said, crossing her arms.

“Tsukasa, this one’s too hard!” Saki leaned back against the bottom of the couch, the popcorn bag in her lap shifting dangerously to the side. “You should pick another one.”

“Hard? It’s not hard at all!” Tsukasa put his left foot down, stepping out of the charade pose he’d been striking. “Toya got this one straight away. Look- see! Think about it!”

“A teacup,” Ichika guessed. Tsukasa shook his head.

“Are you sure it’s not a flamingo?” Honami asked, looking unnecessarily worried. “I don’t know what else looks like that…”

“Wait, I know!” Saki sat up. “It’s an Egyptian pharaoh!” 

“Yes!” Tsukasa put his hands on his hips proudly. “See, I told you it was easy.”

“I don’t get it…” Ichika murmured.

“Am I missing something?” Shiho asked. “I thought you were supposed to make a pose the same as the card.”

“It is the same! I was doing the exact pose!”

“How did you get that?” Ichika asked Saki as she reached forwards to add another line to her tally. 

“She clearly understands my expert poses well!” Tsukasa said, sitting back down with the rest of them.

“We’ve played this before,” Saki explained with a giggle.

“Ahh,” Honami said.

“I thought you got it because I was doing a good job!” Tsukasa's face was scandalised. “I didn’t know you’d memorised the cards.”

“You were still really good!”

“But it’s not the same…”

“That’s okay, we can play a different one next time,” Saki said, then turned to the girls. “My mom said we could have a sleepover at the weekend too! Then we can watch that film Ichi was talking about! You can watch it too, Tsukasa, but you have to promise not to cry at the sad bits.”

Tsukasa frowned. “I would never do that! I’m super brave.”

“I know!” Saki said. “I believe you.”

“I don’t,” Shiho said, and Honami laughed.

“It sounds fun,” Ichika said. “I’ll make sure to bring the DVD on Friday.”

“Yeah!” Saki grinned, then coughed once.

"But one day, the hero suffered a terrible accident."

“It’s going to hurt a bit,” the doctor said, placing a gloved hand against her skin. “Sorry. Just try to keep still.”

“Mmm-” Saki pressed her eyes shut as she felt the sharp pressure of a needle pierce into her,  the cold sinking all the way to her bones. “It- hurts.”

“It’s okay, honey.” Her mother stroked her hair, voice soft. “They’re just trying to help you feel better.”

“I know,” Saki said. They would probably put another bandage on her after they were done. But she already had one on her elbow, and her hand, and her arm. They weren’t cute at all. Just ugly, boring bandaids. She hissed as the pain travelled up into her bones. 

“Don’t worry,” her father said, holding her hand. “We’re here, Saki. We’re both here, right at your side.”

But that was the worst part of it all. Tsukasa wasn’t here, so who was at home with him? Who was looking after him whilst she stole all the attention time and time again? It hurt. It hurt so bad.

“You’ll feel better once the medicine starts to work,” her mother said. “Try to be brave, okay?”

So Saki tried.

"Because of the damage to your wings, you'll no longer be able to fly as you did before," the doctor said. "But there's no reason why your light should fail to work."

"But I can't do it," the hero said. "I've tried and tried, but no matter what I do, I can't light up the skies anymore. I don't understand what's wrong with me."

The girl on the magazine cover was beautiful.

“You can see your full schedule here.” The nurse pointed to something on the screen, and Saki only momentarily lifted her eyes to look. “Like here, you can see you’ll have English classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And here there’s a Math class, and again on Wednesday. If you ever forget, you can check again here.”

“Okay. That’s good.” She had such pretty make-up. So vibrant and striking. Nobody ever wore anything like that in real life.

“And you can upload assignments here,” the nurse continued. “Don’t worry too much about the deadlines. They understand your circumstances.”

“Thank you.” Or maybe they did wear things like that, but just not here. Girls who sometimes went out and saved the city. Girls who fought every night and never worried about getting hurt. Never worried about getting sick.

“It’s basically the same curriculum as they teach in school, so you’ll be getting more or less the same experience,” the nurse said with a smile. “You can talk to your friends about the same exams!”

“Yeah, I will!” Saki picked up the magazine. “Um, have you ever…seen a magical girl?”

“Hm? No, not up close. I usually tend to stay away whenever there’s something going on. Anyway, I’ve written down your login on here so you can just reset your password whenever you get a chance.”

The nurse left, and Saki checked her phone again. Finally, a message.

‘The first day went well!!!! I can already tell this is going to be another successful year! How are you feeling today?’

‘Better,’ Saki texted, because it wasn’t technically a lie. She kept the magazine in her lap as she waited for a reply. It didn’t take long at all.

‘Great!!!! I’m sure you’ll be back before you know it! I’ll collect some cherry blossom petals for you at the weekend so you can properly experience the start of the new year!’

Saki tried to smile, and looked at the front cover again. She was so, so pretty.

"The hero was so ashamed that one day, they decided to run away."

"My friends won't want me like this," the hero wept, head down and eyes low. "I'm no use to anyone like this. How can I tell them that I can't light their skies anymore? Everyone is lost and scared and it's my fault. I'm not a hero at all."

This wasn’t allowed. Going out after lights off was against the rules. Eventually, one of the nurses would peer into her room with that usual crack of the door and realise she was gone and there would be a big fuss and everyone would worry. But Saki would be back before that. She only needed a few minutes. Just a short moment.

She slipped out the fire escape door onto the balcony, catching it before it closed to soften the thud. There was no view from up here, just the parking lot below and the city far away, but it was easier for her to manage than the doors on the ground level. And better phone signal. Probably. Possibly. That was what she kept telling herself. It was just bad connection inside. Even if the texts from her family always came through without issue.

Nothing new tonight. Saki stared at the screen for a moment before turning her gaze up at the sky. Cloudy and dark. Today just like yesterday. Somewhere far away, all her friends were finishing their days too. What had they done today? Gone to school? Eaten lunch together? Maybe laughed about that new viral video going around. Or maybe they were too busy playing music. Gone over to each other’s houses and had too many snacks before dinner. Maybe. Saki didn’t know. Whatever they were doing, they were doing it without her.

Saki watched the sky for a moment more, before turning back towards her room. It was late. She should probably sleep. Her head hurt and her arms felt achey. Today the same as yesterday. Tomorrow the same as today. The world was passing her by. But, of course it was. It didn’t need her anymore.

"Where are you going?!"

The voice rang out across the forest, stopping the hero in their tracks. Behind them stood all of their closest companions, having followed the hero into the wilderness out of concern.

"Don't you understand?" the first friend said. "It doesn't matter if you can't fly anymore."

"It doesn't change how we think of you," the second friend said. "You'll always be our friend."

"You don't need to feel ashamed," the third friend said. "We love you anyway."

"But," the hero said, tears pooling in their eyes. "I wanted to fly alongside you. It's not fair for me to force you to stay on the ground. I can't even shine my light anymore. I'm only causing you problems."

"You'd never be a problem to us," the brother said. "But if you want to fly, then let's fly!"

One by one, each of them took a single feather from their own wings, handing it over to the hero for them to take. It would have taken a full set of wings to restore the hero's lost flight, but by splitting it amongst the four of them, their abilities to fly remained intact whilst allowing the hero their own set of feathers. And when the hero tried once again, this time, they flew.

“What are you writing?” Saki paused as she passed by Tsukasa’s room, peering in around the ajar door. “More homework?”

“No,” Tsukasa said, looking up from his desk. “I’m just trying to think of ideas for our next show.”

“I should’ve known.” Saki smiled. “You were really frowning though. You need any help?”

Tsukasa blinked with an expression that Saki couldn’t fully read, then his face softened. “No, that’s okay! I just thought of something.”

"That's right," the hero thought, eyes bright on the stars above them. "It's been true the entire time. I don’t have to feel bad for the way I am. I don't have to be alone. Even if my body is damaged, with the help of those who love me, I can fly again just the same."

As they felt the presence of their friends and family around them, and all the love they had been given, the hero once again felt a powerful light coursing through them, illuminating their way through the skies. And it was perhaps even stronger than it had been from the start.

Saki let her voice fade out with the last beat of music, feeling herself settle back to the stage. Their audience was somewhere else, somewhere out of sight, but Saki still bowed as deeply as she could as they took their curtain call, Tsukasa and the girls leaving their instruments to stand on stage, Saki holding tightly onto the hands of those beside her. It was probably strange for them to see a magical girl doing an impromptu show, but this was as much a service to the people as fighting monsters was. And she had her friends with her, and her brother too. Still here, despite everything. Still here, even now.

The stars had never shined so bright.

-

was anyone gonna tell me blossom doesn’t even work at pxl……..
>to be fair i did enjoy the show they put on regardless……IDK I JUST ASSUMED SHE WAS A PART OF THE TROUPE
>Nope just a one time thing! But shes still out fighting 
>tyyy i will look for her

Any og fans miss the star flop era? Like im happy for her I just want to see her faceplant again
>check out last night’s camera feed <3
>OMG TYSM

Do we have a name for the Star + Blossom team up yet? Was editing the wiki and realised there’s nothing official yet
>idk but i still find it really funny how long stars registered name is lol
>it literally doesnt fit on the page kjshfdkjs

“Saki? Are you awake?”

“I am!” Saki sat up, tucking her phone into her pocket as she scrambled off her bed, grabbing her bag from the door. “I really actually am this time!”

Just to prove her point, Saki flung the door open to reveal her fully composed self to Tsukasa, holding her head high with two fully upright pigtails. 

“Hm, I never doubted you!” Tsukasa said, nodding. “By the way, are you free tomorrow after school? There’s been some disturbances by the crossing lately and I thought it might be good to patrol there for a bit.”

“Tomorrow? That should be fine.” Saki followed Tsukasa down the stairs, swiping a slice of toast that had been left on the table. It had probably been left there specifically for her, but still. “I’m meeting the girls later today for band practice, but I should be back before nine.”

“Understood! I won’t be home until later, but I’ll text you once I’m on my way.” 

“By the way, Shiho wants you to see if you can expand your protective shield to cover a wider area,” Saki said as she took a sip of juice. “She says last time she saw you it wasn’t wide enough.”

“It’s definitely wide enough! Well, last time, it might’ve been slightly lacking, but me and Rui were working on it last week using the rocket launcher and it’s much better now.”

“Huh? Using the what?”

“Either way, I definitely know how to protect myself now,” Tsukasa said proudly. “And Rui has some new prototypes ready for you to try out.”

“Oooh, I was looking forward to that! I think it would be really fun to try hitting those explosives with my hammer for added speed! It’s pretty similar to the stuff I’ve done in Tennis Club, so I think I could get the hang of it pretty quickly.”

“Of course! I would expect nothing less from my incredible sister.” Tsukasa tossed his bag over his shoulder, heading to the door. “I’ll see you later, okay? Let me know if you get any alerts that you need help with!”

“Will do! See you later, Tsukasa!”

Saki leaned back against the counter, finishing off the breakfast that had been prepared for her. Shoes by the door, coats on the rack. The house was empty right now, but she wasn’t alone. Not today, and not tomorrow either. She was here, and she was allowed to be. With a final bite, Saki grabbed her things and headed to the door.

Time to fly.