August 2024

  ***

  With Hitoishi being somewhere else entirely, Miori spent this Saturday noon with her friend, Ayame. The two sat in a café that belonged to a very small hotel with only one upstairs room somewhere in Akasaka. A single shelf was host to a library about Tokyo’s history in the corner, a rather inviting sight as the two were seated near the window, watching the narrow one-way street outside. The two were served butter toast while Miori ordered a Matcha au lait and Ayame a hand drip coffee ‘Ethiopia’ style.

  “So you started writing?” Miori asked with some interest as she bit into her toast.

  Ayame wore a pretty sundress today – the matching large hat was currently placed on a spare seat while they were indoors. She nodded in response to Miori’s question and sipped on her coffee before she replied.

  “A novel about a girl who’s friends with a Magical Girl. Who knows, this might be interesting for many people out there. Of course, it’s all made up.”

  “Is it though?” Miori could taste gall at the back of her tongue. During the past eight years it was Ayame still possessing fragments of her lost memories which was the most painful thing of all to watch.

  “Well, it’s written from notes about my dreams after I wake up in the morning. It’s mostly nonsense.” Ayame put down her cup, smirking.

  “But hey, it convinced the bigwig of some publishing house to take me on.”

  Miori was intrigued. She never imagined that the thing Ayame’s therapist suggested her to do a few years ago would lead her down the road of becoming an author.

  “That’s good! When will you release it?”

  “That’s still out there. I also have the feeling that the editor they assigned me hates my guts.” Ayame showed a bitter smile after saying those words.

  “What was her name again?” She pondered a while.

  “Sounded very similar to that weird name you asked me about back then.”

  “The name I asked about?” Miori cocked her head to the side in confusion before Ayame snapped her fingers.

  “Oh, that’s right! Her name was Hitoishi. I don’t know what’s the matter with her. When she looked at me it was like she saw a ghost! And then she went to the bathroom for a terribly long time and later tried to play friendly. I think she punched a wall or something. I don’t know what to think of her.”

  Miori turned pale and averted her eyes. She took a deep breath to prevent herself from letting out a shocked gasp after hearing that story.

  No wonder Senpai seemed so out of it. I knew her mood was in the dumps.

  She exhaled noisily and turned towards Ayame again.

  “Ah, I know her!” Miori replied after a while.

  “Don’t take it personally. Her and her boss are regulars at my bar. She pushes herself too hard and is very exhausted most of the time. What you’ve witnessed was probably just a symptom of that, rather than any problem she has with you. She’s a very sweet woman, usually.”

  She offered Ayame a reassuring smile.

  “Is that so? Well, when she came back, she gave me some constructive criticism, so maybe she really was just shaken from something else in her personal life. Also, speaking of your bar…”

  Ayame leaned forwards, giving Miori an annoyed look.

  “You still keep it a secret where exactly you work. I want to come and flirt with you a little on the clock!”

  Miori turned her head away and chuckled quietly.

  “Well, I like to keep my work and private life separate when it comes to the bar. I don’t date any of our flirty customers for that reason, either,” Miori lied as naturally as she breathed. For the past eight years she prevented Ayame from waltzing into the bar and running into Hitoishi, for the latter’s sake.

  “That so?” Ayame grinned before she continued. “Speaking of flirting… your date cancelled on you today? What happened?”

  Miori made a dismissive gesture.

  “Work came up. She immediately made it up to me by going on a mini date with me on the same day.”

  Miori grinned into her cup, with Ayame looking on with a smile.

  “Look at you. All rosy cheeks and smiles. You’re in love! You looked so heartbroken last year, it had me worried.”

  Miori looked down at the ground.

  “A lot happened.”

  “Well, you know who to call if you ever need a shoulder to lean on – and I want to meet your lover when things get serious, you hear me?” Ayame reached out, gently poking Miori’s cheek with her finger.

  Miori grinned awkwardly at her friend.

  “What, will you try to proposition us for a threesome? You keep telling me stories like that all the time…” Miori chuckled and then laughed as Ayame wiggled her eyebrows in response.

  “Well, only if my dearest Miori is okay with it, of course! Barely anything is as important to me as consent.”

  Miori felt a little sting in those words her friend spoke, but she didn’t ask Ayame to elaborate.

  “Hmm, I’ll have to think about it!” Miori replied as her mind wandered. Of course she fantasized about being with Hitoishi all these years, but a slight attraction towards her friend Ayame snuck into her dreams from time to time – and inserted itself into her imagined scenarios, showing her in bed with both Hitoishi and Ayame. Miori surprised herself with those thoughts, considering that she reacted with instant jealousy back in the day when Ayame mentioned that she was into Hitoishi.

  What if she could restore Ayame’s memories and make her remember her attraction to her old friend? All of this sounded like an awkward triangle to Miori, but Ayame had much more experience with nonstandard relationship dynamics than the blonde who never even kissed anyone on the lips.

  Ayame shrugged as she kept sipping her coffee without a care in the world, and Miori kind of envied her for her ignorance about Lethe and her impact on her own mind.

  “Also, since we mentioned work, Miori...” Ayame put her cup down and grabbed something from her handbag. It was a card case which she fished her own business card out of.

  “Whenever you are free, I’d like you to give the modeling shoots that my company scouts for a chance. I’m a hundred percent confident that you’re the perfect woman to show off our lolita fashion line.”

  She slid the card towards Miori. Ayame’s name and her company, ‘Atelier Antoinette’ were printed on it with immaculate care for detail.

  “I don’t have any experience with that, though.” Miori replied, taking the card anyway.

  “You don’t need to, Miori. I’ve been watching you put on lolita dresses for eight years now. You’re killing that look every single time, so have a bit more confidence and show yourself to the world!”

  Ayame grinned as she looked Miori’s body up and down again. “Ever thought about modeling for glamour photography?”

  “When did you turn into a sleazy casting agent, Ayame?”

  “You have a good bod, sis! Come to my office! I’ll make you famous!” Ayame imitated the gruff voice of a street level recruiter.

  Miori couldn’t help but laugh. Despite her missing memories, this was still the same Ayame she met at that boutique.

  The next stop for her Saturday activities was a rooftop in Shibuya. Transformed into Bellona Azure, she began training. Her halberd left silver trails in the air as she practiced her swings, aided by Bellona proper.

  Acting as one after such a long period of complete individual control was difficult. Often, they would have different ideas on how to lead a swing, or how they would defend against an imaginary attack, and as a result their body stalled. Such hesitation would cost them their life in an actual combat setting.

  This is frustrating… but I never want either of us to overpower the other again, so we’ll have to stick with it.

  “Our mind must be as one if we are to improve. Focus!”

  They continued with weapon drills for hours. Then they practiced summoning other weapons to their side.

  Bellona focused and imagined the shape of the weapons she wanted. It was easier with swords and spears than with some of the other weapons - flint- and matchlocks in particular required her to memorize the way they worked, as did cannons. She knew all this before, but a year of disuse thanks to her assuming complete control had rendered her mastery over it foggy in her head, making her rely on Bellona’s expertise.

  She was an adequate listener and pupil, but it would still take time for her to get used to her shared Magical Girl form again. Currently, she managed to summon about four swords and made them spin around her like the world’s deadliest barrier.

  She tried summoning spears next – she managed to get the form right, but compared to what she would expect, they looked more like toothpicks. Simply put, they were too short.

  “Quite literally: think bigger!”

  Here I go again…

  This time they resembled a pike more than a spear – pretty good to keep people at a distance. If they were used in a large formation, that is.

  Don’t say anything… I know already.

  She focused as hard as she could and finally managed to summon a few spears – they floated in the air next to her, and pointed towards wherever she was looking, ready to be launched like javelins.

  “Now you just need to make it your second nature to summon them. Let’s do guns another day.”

  She nodded and looked around. There were a few pigeons on the roof with her.

  “Realm of Duels needs a target, yes? I can’t just vanish into my own little dimension?”

  “Essentially.”

  Bellona pointed her halberd at one of the nearby pigeons and hoped that it would suffice as a ‘target’.

  “Usually, you need a reason why you want to drag that particular individual into a pocket dimension. Most commonly to settle a score in a duel without interruptions.”

  “So, the bird won’t do.”

  “The bird won’t do.”

  Bellona let out a long sigh and looked around – then her bracer vibrated as Bellona proper talked again.

  “You might get a chance to train it on an opponent after all.”

  The nearby street was in disarray. People ran away panicked while magical beams shot in surprising coordination after them, hitting buildings and asphalt and cratering the landscape in turn.

  The sound of drums could be heard as a formation of child-sized rodents marched past the destruction, announcing their presence with gleeful squeaks.

  Bellona Azure landed right in front of them, readying her halberd.

  “Oh! This world’s defenders are showing themselves! But why is it only the blue one?” the rat in charge spoke up, eyeing Bellona suspiciously. “Where is the red one?”

  “She’s busy,” answered Bellona, gritting her teeth. She recalled various encounters with these rodents and how Minerva indulged in their dumb little insistence on formation combat, having Bellona summon multiple firearms herself to exchange fire. She wasn’t in the mood for it today, nor was she confident in her ability to create rifles yet.

  “A-hah! Too busy to defend her world from the mighty Rodent Regiment?!” The leader pointed at Bellona. “Gentlemen, let’s make them regret taking us lightly- AH!”

  The rodent screamed as Bellona dashed forwards – a few shots were fired her way as the mice and hamsters in the formation got startled. She deflected them with a magic barrier summoned from her crystal-adorned bracer – causing the beams to obliterate multiple window fronts - before she cleaved the first line of rodent soldiers in half.

  She heard a little girl scream in the distance. Doubtlessly she was shocking any onlookers with her excessive display of violence against the cute little critters, but soon shock gave way to confusion.

  The bisected bodies floated in place and slowly dissolved into rainbow-colored cubes, vanishing only to be replaced by a holographic depiction of a skull with X-es for eyes.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “You still don’t have the courage to come here yourselves,” Bellona almost growled as she spoke to them, looking at her opponents with cold eyes.

  “You send your little avatars like the cowards you are! You cause destruction, injuries, even deaths in the past!”

  She grabbed the capybara standard bearer and mercilessly slammed it into the ground, making it explode into a rain of colorful cubes.

  “What are you even doing? Is this some sort of sick drone warfare?”

  The formation was now in utter chaos – overcharged magic rifles were fired in her direction and deflected by her magic barrier as she hacked, stabbed and cleaved at any rodent in her way.

  One shot managed to hit her and exploded against her chest plate. It chipped from the impact as she coughed and fell to one knee to collect herself.

  She retaliated by summoning two spears to her side that she launched into the marksmen who managed to hit her.

  “Gyyyaaahhh!” She heard a shout behind her and felt a sharp pain in her left thigh. One of the rat soldiers actually managed to sneak up on her and impaled her leg with a bayonet. A brave little effort, but she destroyed his virtual body with a violent hit of her armored left bracer.

  “Fall back and get back into formation! Take her out with concentrated fire!”

  The commanding rat directed the twenty-ish survivors to get back in line. Bellona ran out of patience and pointed her halberd at him.

  “Realm of Duels!”

  ***

  Nothing happened.

  Her and the rodents were still in the street and all that happened was that she shouted the name of a special technique without any effect – like a high school kid with eight-grader syndrome.

  Bellona turned red as the creatures looked on in confusion before their leader came back to his senses.

  “Don’t just gawk! Shoot her!”

  The first line shot a volley of magically enhanced projectiles her way, necessitating for her to jump out of the way – she chose the sky as the best place to escape, but there was still one more line of rodents left that trained their weapons on her.

  In this moment she focused, recalling the construction of her magical flintlock long guns and gave it a shot.

  She managed to create four. In quick succession she fired into the formation and sent the empty guns right after as blunt impact weapons.

  Multiple rodents died on the spot and the rest got startled by the counteroffensive, causing all the shots to fly into wildly different directions and miss the Magical Girl entirely.

  She landed right in the middle of their formation, halberd by her side and primed for a large cleave.

  “Your time here is over!” she announced before she gave them the rest.

  Miori rubbed the sore spots on her chest and her left thigh while she waited for her train at Shibuya Station. Maybe she went a little bit overboard with the violence this time, leaving herself unnecessarily open, but it was hard to keep her pent-up rage in check when she was fused with someone as ferocious as Bellona.

  That didn’t work. What am I missing for this technique?

  “Maybe it’s a reason to fight. Are you only living for revenge? Only for your love? Or is there a deeper reason why you would want to be a Magical Girl?”

  A reason?

  She stepped into the train as it arrived, grimacing on the way in as her sore thigh complained again.

  She didn’t need to sit down for the few stations, so she grabbed a handle and looked at the passing city while she contemplated her reason for being a Magical Girl.

  Of course it was initially to save Hitoishi from her despair. But she failed, so did she have any right to claim that as her reason?

  Then there was her revenge. Even when she was at her peak, she wasn’t able to beat Lethe, and now she had essentially been set back to zero. If she was a Magical Girl to fight her, then she doomed herself to failure.

  Someone bumped into her.

  “Sorry, miss…” a quiet voice said, devoid of any emotion.

  Miori turned her head and saw a young girl, wearing her middle school uniform even on a Saturday. She was slowly shuffling along the length of the train towards the front of the car, where she waited by the doors.

  Her eyes were swollen, like she cried a lot recently. Even now there were shiny trails on her cheeks as she vacantly stared out of the windows, taking in the sunset over Tokyo.

  She looks like she is having a hard time…

  “And you intend to do what about it?”

  Miori hesitated – getting involved in a random stranger’s troubles was probably not going to solve anything for either of the two, but she had an odd feeling about this one.

  I’ll follow her and ask her what’s wrong – better than doing nothing.

  “If you think it’ll help…”

  ***

  The train stopped at Shinjuku Station. Miori stepped behind the young girl as everyone left the car. The girl was shuffling quietly through the station, requiring Miori to sometimes stop and pretend to check out the options at various vending machines – it did make her feel awkward to tail the girl like this, but she didn’t want to call out to her and force her to talk about what made her cry in a crowded place like this.

  She saw the girl bump into multiple people on her way. She always gave the same emotionless apology, though one man shouted at her, causing her to whimper and apologize in a more pitiful voice. It made Miori’s stomach turn to see her like that.

  She couldn’t discern where the girl wanted to go at all – she almost seemed aimless, wiping her tears and sniffling as she looked at the arrival and departure plans. Finally, she moved again and Miori continued her ‘stealthy’ tailing mission. It was painfully slow again – like the girl wanted to drag out her arrival at whatever destination she had in mind for as long as possible but couldn’t put it off entirely.

  Miori now waited some distance away as the girl approached the station platform. She stood as close to the end of the platform as possible, at the opening from which the train would arrive. Minutes passed, with the arrival time on the electric sign ticking down. The girl looked up at it as if it were the countdown to her execution.

  It dawned on Miori way too late what all this meant. As the sound of metal wheels running on the tracks approached and became loud enough to signal the imminent arrival of a train, the girl used the last of her strength to hop off the platform.

  ***

  Miori’s body moved on its own – she started to sprint. She didn’t need to form the word ‘transform’ in her mind or with her lips, instead it triggered automatically with her desire to save this lost soul.

  She ran, but her human speed wasn’t enough – so her legs transformed first, followed by the rest of her body. Her ring housing Bellona’s sapphire crystal came loose and formed a bracer around her left forearm to grant her immediate access to her magic.

  Time felt like it was almost at a standstill, with heads slowly turning the way of the odd woman who was mid-transformation – and immediately flinching back as a bright flash of light blinded them.

  Bellona Azure materialized in the midst of the dense station crowd.

  By now she could hear the brakes of the train engaging, but with only a fraction of a second left it would be way too late.

  Bellona jumped and reached out for the young girl.

  Please let this work…!

  “Realm of Duels!”

  Akane opened her eyes. Someone was holding her, squeezing her against hard metal with shaky arms. Just a second ago she decided to end her life, to end the pain of being ostracized by her family for her inexplicable loss of memories about her grandfather the very moment he passed away.

  She saw the ghostly outline of the train that she chose as her suicide method pass through her, slowly vanishing entirely, together with the people who ran to the edge of the station’s platform. Only one more second and she was alone, with whoever was holding her in her arms.

  The station was encased in a light fog, with a distinct blue light penetrating it. In the distance she saw lines of light in the sky, interlinking and forming endless triangles around the area.

  The woman holding her was breathing heavily, falling to her knees and holding Akane even tighter. Her face looked like she usually wore a permanent scowl, but right now she was looking relieved, with tears pooling in her golden glowing eyes. Blue hair swayed behind her body, producing its own glow on the purple spectrum.

  Akane was too stunned to speak as the Magical Girl who came from the heavens to save her specifically cried tears of relief for her survival.

  “I’m… so glad that I wasn’t too late…!”

  The woman managed to say between her tears, squeezing Akane even tighter still. She could feel her entire body trembling.

  The girl closed her eyes. Despite the cold metal of the Magical Girl’s armor, she felt warmer than she ever had in the past few weeks.

  Bellona undid the barrier after carrying Akane back on top of the platform.

  As expected, there was chaos and uncertainty whether someone just died under the wheels of the arriving train.

  The Magical Girl explained the situation to the best of her abilities, allowing things to resume as normal as she took off to somewhere else with the girl still in her arms.

  She was shaking internally; she bet it all on an ability she didn’t know how to use yet, gambled on everything with almost nothing and won – and possibly found her reason to fight. She touched down in Gyoen Park, putting the young girl down on one of the park benches, before she sat down next to her.

  “Th-thank you, miss…” the girl said quietly. She tried to make eye contact but was obviously a little intimidated by Bellona’s presence.

  “I’m scary, hm? Can you keep a secret?”

  “H-huh? I… I guess.”

  Now it was Miori who sat next to her after undoing her transformation.

  “This is much better, hm? I’m a person, just like you.”

  The girl’s eyes widened.

  “Oh, n-no, miss Magical Girl, you mustn’t…!”

  Miori grinned.

  “Oh? Why? Because my secret would be out? Then try this: what’s my Magical Girl name?”

  “I, uh… I don’t know…” the girl mumbled.

  “See? Can’t tell anyone on a Magical Girl you don’t even know.”

  She gently patted the girl’s head.

  “I’ve been around for a while, but my image was erased from all public records. Because I was always with the person who got cursed to lose her memories of me. And the curse removes all physical evidence as well.”

  That seemed to catch the girl’s attention.

  “Someone was made to forget about you?”

  “That’s quite right. So, now that I shared my problems with you, how about you tell me a little about yourself?”

  The girl looked up at her before she focused her eyes on the ground.

  “For example… why did you do that? What’s gotten you so down that you would hurt yourself like that?”

  ***

  Akane told her story to Miori, who listened patiently. When appropriate, she put her hand on the girl’s back and gave her encouraging words. As the girl finished, she even gave her a hug and let her cry against her shoulder.

  Her family thought it was a sick joke. She was the favorite grandchild by far, spoiled by a grandfather who knew that she wouldn’t get to spend as much time with him as the rest. And the very moment he passed away, she said she didn’t remember him. Things lined up way too conveniently for this to be genuine memory loss, or so they rationalized. The child must be playing tricks! Or she just manipulated her grandfather to receive more gifts.

  Her home environment was cold towards her, and she wasn’t invited to the actual funeral.

  ‘There’s no sense in allowing someone like her to say goodbye, if she really doesn’t remember.’

  All of this was done under the assumption that she would give up her deception and come clean about what her end goal for all of this was.

  Akane’s despair at no one believing her kept eating at her. She didn’t know what she did to deserve this treatment, or what she could do to make her family forgive her, since she couldn’t remember anything.

  Rumors also spread at school and before long, everyone was disgusted by her.

  “So… that’s how it is.” Miori kept running her hand over the girl’s back as she let her sob her heart out.

  “I think I can fix this… if your parents will listen to a Magical Girl.”

  Bellona Azure landed in front of Akane’s house while carrying the girl in her arms. After putting her down she rang the bell and waited. And waited.

  Her mother was very slow in opening the door. Bellona stepped a bit to the side so Akane was the first one her mother would see.

  She heard the door open, with Akane shrinking under the gaze of the person behind the door.

  “Where were you this late? Were you tricking people, like you did grandpa, hm?” The voice was cold. This person once held a lot of love for her daughter, but at this moment all this warmth was covered under a thick sheet of ice.

  “She didn’t trick anyone.” Bellona said as she stepped into view, protectively putting a hand on Akane’s shoulder. Her sudden appearance was a clear shock to her mother, whose voice was caught in her throat.

  “May I come in? I think it’s time your family learns the truth behind Akane’s memory loss.”

  ***

  Bellona was blunt in her delivery. She told the family everything. That their treatment of Akane caused her to try and take her own life and that her memory loss was real, caused by an interdimensional invader named Lethe, who, unlike the rampaging marionettes and rats, used subtlety and manipulation to cause mayhem.

  She told them about her own encounter with the fiend and how it cost her Magical Girl partner her memories. Her stay at Akane’s house lasted a good two hours so she could finish her story, but as she left the house, she felt satisfied with what she did.

  “You are surprisingly good with children. Young girls, at least.”

  She chuckled quietly.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You would probably make a good mother.”

  “Never happening. But it might be that this is what I’ll be fighting for from now on… to protect girls like her.” She replied before she walked down the streets of the neighborhood, lost in thought. The scent of roses penetrated her nostrils, and she immediately summoned her halberd to her side, holding it at the ready.

  “Oh my, did I startle you?” Lethe’s sweet voice came from around a corner, and she stepped into view. She was still wearing her gaudy fur coat and sunglasses that partially obscured her nonhuman nature.

  “Lethe!” Bellona shouted, pointing her halberd at her.

  “I’m not here to steal a memory from you or to fight you.” The malevolent spirit said with some voiced annoyance.

  “This is most definitely a trap.”

  I know.

  “Oh, what else might it be?” Bellona walked around Lethe and Lethe followed suit, causing both to circle each other.

  “You ruined my fun here. But I applaud you, nonetheless,” Lethe said with venom in her voice.

  “So I want to make a declaration.” She stopped, taking off her sunglasses.

  “I’ve grown bored of the game I’ve been playing with the two of you for the past eight years. You’ve become too unpredictable, and your choices don’t bring me as much amusement as before. The fruits you produce aren’t as sweet as they could be. So, heed my words!”

  Bellona was confused at the mention of eight years and multiple fruits.

  She only got Hitoishi once last year, right?

  “The next time your darling Seika professes her love to you, I will end the two of you for good. I will erase both of your memories of each other, all the way back to the first day you met. You will never meet again and be complete strangers!” Lethe cackled.

  “That’s quite enough from you. Realm of Duels!”

  She could see the surprise on Lethe’s face as the two of them entered her pocket dimension.

  Bellona didn’t waste any time and slashed at Lethe with her halberd.

  The creature jumped back, hissing as she extended thorned vines from her body.

  “Do I need to teach you a lesson?!” she shouted, swinging her tendrils towards Bellona.

  The armored Magical Girl grinned – she had the plant creature exactly where she wanted. In a pocket dimension, isolated from the domain in which she ruled reality.

  “By all means, show me how a plant dies!” She replied and launched herself towards Lethe. The creature’s movements were a bit more sluggish than in her domain – and from what Bellona could surmise, she wasn’t able to sprout her vines from anywhere but her body while she wasn’t surrounded by the greenery of her garden.

  “You’re slow!” Bellona taunted her as she hacked the vines off the very moment they grew back. The demon screamed in frustration as she was denied the use of her weapons, trying to escape Bellona by dodging away from her, to build enough distance so she could make use of her vines again.

  “You fool! You can’t- “

  Lethe’s speech was cut short as Bellona summoned two swords and sent them spinning in the exact same direction that she was driving her opponent towards. The plant woman’s legs were cut off by the knees and she fell to the ground shrieking, turning on her back with her hand stretched out towards Bellona.

  “Wait, we can still- “

  Her head went flying with a swift strike from Bellona’s halberd.

  Lethe’s body was in front of Bellona in four pieces – she couldn’t believe it.

  “Quick, burn the body!” Bellona proper chimed in.

  “Huh? With what?!”

  Just as she asked, she was hit by a headache resulting from a book’s worth of information being shoved into her skull by her partner.

  “Ough… that hurts!”

  “This is why we trained slowly by having you learn manually, but there’s no time! Summon it!”

  Bellona wasn’t entirely certain what her crystal made her summon, but she put the information to use. She dismissed her halberd and grabbed the long tube-like object that appeared out of a magic circle in front of her.

  It was like a large brass syringe with a brass cone attached to the front. A thick piece of wick burned in the opening. The backside of it sported a handle that could be pushed forward, with a stabilizing handle behind a brass shield just below the end of the larger tube.

  “What in the world is this?”

  “It’s called a cheirosiphōn and it shoots something called ‘Greek Fire’. Now PUMP!”

  Bellona did as she was instructed. A stream of flame shot out of the strange device and consumed the body of the woman who had been the bane of her existence for so long. It was extremely cathartic – but something felt off.

  She let the strange apparatus disappear again as she looked at the ash left behind. Then she collapsed her pocket dimension to return into the neighborhood.

  “That was too easy.”

  “Well observed.” Lethe’s voice came from behind and Bellona readied her halberd again, pointing it at the plant creature once more.

  Lethe shrugged as she looked at Bellona, now without her coat and sunglasses.

  “And I liked those clothes, too! Consider it a lesson, Bellona: You cannot kill me. But for your valiant effort…”

  She plucked a leaf from her head and scratched something into its surface with her sharp nails before she tossed it towards Bellona – it floated awkwardly in her direction and landed in front of her feet.

  “It’s the location where I buried some of your… older possessions. Consider it a gift for entertaining me today with a fight.”

  With that Lethe disappeared in a twister of rose petals, leaving the confused Bellona behind, who picked up the leaf and examined it.

  It showed a location in Yoyogi park, and Bellona had a bad feeling about it.