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It took too much of 《Magical Girl ✮ Solitas Joyeuse》’s practiced customer service restraint to stifle a yelp when a cool voice fragile as a floating bubble whispered into her left ear: “Hi, Faith. I love your space buns. So poofy and pretty.”
Someone knew her name.
She spun at her heels, brown fingers firm around the ergonomic golden handle of her Purification Hammer, and faced the threat.
It wasn’t isolated, tainted qi manifesting as an echo of human voice. It wasn’t her girlfriend—who couldn’t have been here, anyway. It…
It was a girl.
Perhaps a little younger than her, with long, dark blonde hair that fell all the way down to her hips. Taller than her by a good half-foot. This strange goth loli-looking ruffled, shoulderless white blouse and a long, black skirt.
And those eyes. From the feet of distance she’d created, she couldn’t even discern their color — they were so blank and dilated, they may as well have been a pair of black holes. The girl was smiling, too, but not in a way that looked present. Was she on something?
“Who is Faith,” she muttered, hopefully convincingly.
“You, of course,” the girl dispelled, stepping forward. Her hair swished with her like a curtain. Solitas’ grip tightened.
Her lips pursed, but she refused to give anything away. “How do you know that.”
“You told me, Faith.”
Solitas blinked. What? “… Who are you?”
The girl giggled. One of her hands came up to a tear-shaped pendant of black glass at her heart. The alley grew unseasonably warm for the fall afternoon.
“Be carefullllll, Faith,” the girl whispered, syllables caressing the shell of her ear as if she were right next to her. Then, the crumble of bricks punched through the air. Not letting the mysterious girl out of her field of vision, Solitas hesitantly glanced over. The wall of the alley had a perfectly neat round hole punched out of it, a solid five feet in diameter, as if it had never been there in the first place — brick itself was sheared halfway, exposing the drywall. A chill snuck into her heart like a rat. On a deeper level, she could discern traces of polluted qi dissipating. That had been her quarry, then — unmade, so swiftly.
“Sneaky little beasts,” the girl crooned, voice close yet body distant.
Solitas’ mind began to churn. The pendant was her soul gem, certainly. This girl was a magical girl, too. And yet — how had she done that? She hadn’t even moved.
“What did you do?”
The girl stepped towards her, her eyes unchanging, dead abysses. “I loosened the chains a little, that’s all.”
Solitas frowned. Her own soul gem flickered with bloody light against her collarbone at the peak of her frilly crimson dress as she quietly pooled her spirit’s vitality into her hammer. Something wasn’t right.
“Chains?”
The girl’s smile widened a little broader, an unnerving porcelain curve. Suddenly, she wasn’t in front of Solitas. Not as because she moved — she simply ceased to exist in that space. Clammy, slender fingers trailed down the inside of her wrist, and she felt the warmth of breath on her throat. “Faiith.”
Solitas grimaced. Instincts kicking in, she swung the Purification Hammer, twisting her body to get this girl who didn’t understand the importance of boundaries the hell away from her.
Her hammer dematerialized as though she had dispelled it, the crystallized emanation of her soul fixed by her perception suddenly unmoored. Solitas gasped as the force of a swing burned into her side, vitality crackling as it pounded into her veins. Only… it was hers. She could feel the flavor of its signature. It was her strike.
The Purification Hammer clattered on the asphalt.
“Sorry,” the girl whispered, far too close, expression unmoving. “Instinct.”
She was dumbfounded. No one had trained her for something like this. “Wh—are you fighting other magical girls often?”
The asphalt suddenly seemed to bubble near the girl’s feet. Or, not quite. Little bubble-shaped holes carved themselves through the ground, as though a gas were working its way through the asphalt. But the holes were nothing. They simply ceased to be, like everything else this girl’s magic had touched.
The girl removed her hand from around her soul gem pendant, palm visibly stained some kind of… dripping fluid, the shade of Vantablack. Without looking, the girl flicked her wrist a few times, sending droplets hissing into the pavement. None of that was supposed to happen. Something was seriously wrong with this girl’s soul.
That was when she realized who it must be.
She froze.
There had been a number of rumors since October… of a magical girl who hunted other magical girls, tearing through their defenses with some impossible, invisible power. None of her veteran coworkers had heard of anything like it. If those who claimed to have survived her were to be reliably trusted, she went by the name Vacua. The vile witch. She would had dismissed it as another of the ghost stories magical girls told each other on mind-numbing night shifts, like the Graveyard Breath or the Demon Whisperer, but…
Solitas gritted her teeth, snatched up her hammer like a leaping tongue of flame.
“You put my girlfriend into a coma, didn’t you.”
The corners of Vacua’s lips twitched downward into something almost resembling a pout. It was the first change of expression Solitas had seen on the girl. “She did most of the work herself.” She tilted her head in an apologetic way that Solitas would have called cute, had it not been who it was. “I certainly didn’t intend it.”
Solitas suppressed a noise of mounting frustration. Facts were beginning to click into place. “So you were the one who blew a gaping void into that apartment complex?”
“You would have done the same, had you seen that beast, Faith.” (People’s lives were ruined! Dozens!)
“How do you know my name?”
“I told you already.”
A thought struck. If a direct strike wasn’t going to cut it, she would have to go for something a bit more creative. She’d have to rely on her soul-integrity — it was going to be incredibly dangerous. But she remembered the stories of what the bodies of her magical girl victims looked like. She dispersed her vitality throughout her limbs, focus gently guiding it along, stirring it into motion.
She kept the conversation going. “How could I have told you.”
“Three years ago,” Vacua, impossibly, recited. “I think it was December. You told me. I told you my name, too.” A bit of her smile returned, unnerving as before, but… almost tremulous.
She pushed. There was only one way she was getting out of this unmaimed. She steadied her breath. “I don’t know. I think I’d remember you.”
A wet chuckle. “I wasn’t like this.” The girl crossed her arms, almost hugging herself. “This is a little better.”
She began to harden her qi. “What is?”
“Now the void within is out in the open, Faith. It’s like transitioning all over again.”
She raised an eyebrow. “A murderess. Really?”
“Not like that. Ontologically. Or, I suppose meontologically. Now I know who I am. Who I’ve been.”
Almost ready. Almost. This would be risky. “And who is that.”
Vacua twitched. “Nothing—“
Solitas lunged, whole body sizzling with steaming, seething qi like a roaring wildfire. The frail witch bowled over at once, eyes never leaving her own. In an instant Solitas was atop her, pouring waves of force into her body. She noticed a Chinese character tattoo on one of her bare shoulders. Classic white girl. She wrapped her hands around the witch’s throat, squeezing.
Vacua hissed, nostrils flaring. The air was a thick soup around them, muggy and hot as it went down Solitas’ windpipe. She focused on incapacitating the threat. She didn’t know how Vacua’s magic worked, but —
Vacua began to silently weep. Inky, glossy tears rolled down her cheeks, utterly incomprehensible. “Faith,” she rasped, “please stop.” Her body began to crumple under her, not even attempting to resist. It reminded her of things she refused to consider.
Solitas grimaced. “I need to stop you. You fucking hurt Grace. You’ve been killing people, Vacua.” She squeezed harder. Just knock her out, then… she could… something…
“C-can’t stop,” Vacua choked, then reached up.
At first, for some reason, Solitas thought she would touch her face. It certainly seemed in keeping with her stalkerish habits. But she didn’t.
Pale, clammy fingers—the hand with the faint black stain—brushed against the glowing ruby of Solitas’ soul gem. At once, silence fell in her world. The baseline buzz of environmental qi she used to determine where monstrous anomalies would congeal suddenly fell soundless. Even within, Faith felt nothing. No inner vitality, no sizzling magic, no force. A total zero. It was like she had been detransformed, like she had fallen through the ground into a vast unbounded void where nothing lived, and she just fell, fell, fell.
That instant of shock was all Vacua needed. A little shove forced Faith, already dazed, to slacken her grip. Vacua scrambled out from under her, sucking in noisy gulps of breath.
Quiet.
Faith’s lip quivered, blood racing uncomfortably. Her poofy crimson dress had faded into jeans and blouse again. She clutched her soul gem, suddenly an inert bracelet, between her palms. “W-what did you do to me?”
“Nullified your m-magic,” Vacua gasped. “You’ll be fine in a few, I swear. Don’t try to transform back, Faith. Please.”
Faith blinked. Oh, this was horrible. Vacua knew her face, if she hadn’t already. The perception shroud was gone. She was exposed. She glanced out of the alley, heart sprinting at a jaguar’s pace. Had anyone else seen—
“I-I won’t hurt you,” Vacua heaved. “Fuck.”
Faith turned back to look as the vile witch scrambled to her wobbling knees, almost pitching over. A shaking hand desperately swept long locks out of her face, and, before Faith could react, the girl retched. A puddle of sticky, transparent fluid, glossy and iridescent like oil, puddled on the alley’s asphalt. For the first time, Vacua’s eyes squeezed shut. (Faith realized then that she hadn’t blinked even once under her gaze.) She seemed to be choking on air.
As if suddenly plagued with fever, Vacua’s entire body shivered. Faith stared. After a moment, the other girl settled on her own legs in a bedraggled facsimile of seiza, wiping a final droplet of the putrid liquid from her lips with the back of her hand.
“Christ,” Vacua muttered. “I suppose that’s fair.”
Faith blinked. “I… what now? What do you even want with me?”
Vacua sighed, still quivering. “Nothing more than I usually do.”
That left Faith frowning. Too much familiarity. “I know you,” she mused. “I’ve got to. Take off your perception shroud?”
“I can’t.”
“… What do you mean?”
Vacua made a sweeping gesture. Faith couldn’t help noticing that her pupils had contracted enough to reveal pretty gray irises, just a flicker of vital light left within them. “It doesn’t come off. Void wraps itself around me like a cloak. I don’t know how you… what, government subcontractors?” Faith nodded absently. “Sure. I don’t know how you government subcontractors do it, but this isn’t quite a soul gem,” she said, pointing a black-painted nail to her pendant.
Faith’s thoughts spun. “How? You’re clearly capable of manipulating magic.”
“This cursed Witch’s Tear dragged my soul into its infinite, hollow depths. I can loosen or tighten the chains on endlessssss nothingness,” Vacua replied with a sardonic lilt, sparing a brief glance at the blue sky overhead. “It’s difficult to remain fully lucid, though.”
Things were getting more and more difficult to fathom. “Wha—why would you do that?”
“I hadn’t known when I bought it. At a fucking thrift store, Faith,” the girl huffed, mirthless. “Ten dollars.”
Faith gasped. Suddenly, horribly, unbelievably, everything made sense. Her awareness seeped through the invisible shroud. Then, she saw her, right before her. Her stomach dropped.
“Autumn?”
“Yeah,” her friend said. “Hey.” More pitch tears dripped down the witch’s cheeks as some of the unnerving tension which had animated her uncoiled.
All the potential replies gummed up Faith’s throat like a nasty, clogged drain. She didn’t know what to say. Eventually, she settled on the most important thing. “What did you do to Grace, Autumn?”
She watched as the girl’s shoulders slumped. Okay, maybe the tattoo was well-researched, then. She knew a little of what Autumn studied.
Autumn’s hands cupped her own cheeks, wiping void tears into the black smears on her face. “I didn’t mean to,” she hastily mumbled. “So fucking sorry. There was this massive anomaly. She kept pursuing me because of…”
Her anger ebbed somewhat, Faith was feeling a little more charitable. “… Your reputation?”
“It’s so hungry,” Autumn muttered. “I’m so hungry. Magical girls’ qi is pristine, pellucid, perfect. I don’t know what you do, but the impurities are all cast off in your transformations. So delicious. It’s the most reliable way to hold on to my awareness.” Her face seemed frozen, her sight fixed on something other than Faith. “I tried to stop. Just…”
“Just…?”
“I tried just a little,” she admitted, and fully covered her face. “Not enough.”
She hated how small Autumn’s voice sounded. “… Thanks. I think.”
Autumn let out a dull, questioning hum.
“She didn’t die. The corp’s paying for her hospital stay. For some reason. The doctor says she’ll be okay in the long run.”
Concealed behind her hands, she could not see Autumn. But she heard the sigh, the tiny utterance. “Okay.”
This was… unfortunate.
It was easier to handle her emotions when she could just hate the vile witch Vacua. The viable outlet lended her rage a certain stabilizing logic. But now…
What were they going to do?
“C-can we get rid of it? Destroy it?”
A pause. “I’ll die. My soul is in there.”
Faith exhaled. “Come here.” Autumn peeked—tragically, it was so cute—between her fingers at her spread arms. Slowly, the taller girl shuffled over on her knees, avoiding the puddles of unnatural liquid splattered across the asphalt. Then, with a great sigh not unlike a death rattle, her lanky friend sank into her arms. Faith could admit she didn’t think about hugging Autumn very often—even if she was one of her closest friends, Autumn hadn’t known her secret and, at any event, Faith had only seen one faceless photo of the girl. Still, she was warm. Breath fanned against her neck; she shivered.
“Sorry,” Autumn murmured. “I couldn’t stand it.”
Hesitantly, she brought crimson-tipped fingers, soul gem bracelet re-secured around the wrist, around to stroke Autumn’s back, running down long, cared-for locks. Distantly, Autumn moaned.
“God, this feels good,” the other girl whispered. “I… Faiiiiith.” Cracked lips curved against the crook of her neck; she suppressed a shiver.
“Y-yeah?”
“You’re my best friend. My only friend. I love you.”
She felt her cheeks warm. “Oh… I. You too, Autumn.”
Autumn giggled. It sounded a lot lighter than before. “Yay,” she said.
Faith laughed. Little puffs of air against her skin marked Autumn’s tandem chuckle.
Then—“I missed you,” Autumn whispered against her. Not near her skin, but upon it. She laid a kiss there, just the one. Faith’s breaths grew shallower, and she pulled Autumn back, gentle, by her hair. The girl’s eyes fluttered. She let out a little whimper.
Faith was scooting backward before she knew what she was doing.
It took a moment for clarity to return to Autumn’s eyes. They were almost entirely normal again—a stormy, fluid gray. Still a little dilated, but, if that pendant was as cursed as she said, that was to be expected.
They stared at each other. Eventually, Autumn, black-smeared cheeks pinking, looked to a wall. (The wall she had carved a hole through with her magic…)
“… Sorry.”
“I…” she resolved not to think about it. “It’s fine.” Then, after a brief pause, a thought occurred to her. “Hey, where are you staying? You live a state over, honey.”
Autumn shivered—she wasn’t quite sure why. “I can step through any gap or absence. I can just go back to my apartment, or something. But I’ve been staying, um, wherever.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Wherever.”
“Yeah, wherever. Not like anyone can see me, anyway, unless they’re a magical girl.”
She must have been so lonely…
“What happened to your phone?”
Autumn’s cheeks got a little pinker. Cute. “I, w-well. I. Um. dropped it.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Dropped it?”
A nod. “Yeah.”
“… Which means…?”
“Iwaspracticinglevitating.”
A cackle shot out of Faith. “Oh my god, you dork.”
“Look, it’s fiiiiiiiine. N-now that you know who I am, we can talk whenever in person. Um—”
“Stay with me,” Faith interrupted.
Autumn blinked. “Y-yeah?” She sounded—open. Faith noticed something glinting in her eyes.
“We’ve gotta hang out, girl. Okay?”
Autumn smiled bigger than she had all afternoon.
“Okay.”
With a quiet exhale, Faith rose to her feet, carrying the girl practically in her lap with her. She smiled at the noise that rose in Autumn’s throat, setting the taller girl down beside her. The mental image of how they must have looked put a giggle in her mouth. Autumn, however, finally looked a little uncertain, a cloud passing over the faint traces of rippling life in her eyes.
“Faith?”
“What’s up?”
“I’m still going to need to devour them. Unless you want it to… consume me, anyway.”
Faith frowned. Oh, god. She was going to have to make a choice. A big, important choice. But, well—
“I can make this work.”
Autumn squinted at her, clearly asking “how”.
“I will,” she reassured. “We—we can figure something out, Autumn, okay, honey? Do you have your HRT? You eaten anything?”
Autumn sighed. She ceased to exist. Faith flinched.
What?
Before she could process what had just happened, the girl blinked back into existence again, a purse in hand. “Yeah, I’ve got it. Now we can. Uh. Inject together. … Haven’t eaten. Don’t know if I still can, actually.”
“W-warn me next time, okay…?”
Autumn tilted her head. “Hm?”
“You disappeared.”
“Oh. Sorry,” she said, sounding kind of apologetic, mostly confused. But she said no more.
She reached over to wrap her hand around the other girl’s wrist, trying to ignore her shiver. “… Let’s get Thai.”
Autumn grinned, nodding. Faith traced the shifting of her burnished bronze hair, the sway of her pendant’s chain, with her eyes. She thought of nothing.
Half troubled and half relieved, Faith smiled back.