Our true foe

“What… the fuck… was that…” panted Fujiko, as if even her lungs had just been unfrozen.

I sat up and put my hand to my throbbing head. Aki hadn’t exactly dropped us gently.

“That… was our true foe…? The one we’ve been hunting?” said Ryou, sounding equally disoriented. “...an enemy we cannot even approach.”

Ryou and Fujiko sat up next to me. Ryou was hardly one to wear her emotions on her face, and ‘fear’ was practically a foreign emotion to Fujiko, so seeing them both so completely shaken up was disconcerting.

For a moment the three of us sat in silence. I mean, the fuck could you say after that? Me and Time had been manipulated this whole way. Ryou and Fuji had put their lives on the line for a lie. Nabiki-

“Wait, where’s Nabiki?”

I jumped to my feet and scoured my surroundings. I threw open the nearest door. Nabiki was laying on the ground in the next room over, unconscious, her cybernetic spine bent backwards in a way no human spine could do safely.

Charm was frantically pawing at her face.

“Oh shit…” I knelt down beside her, my heart racing. My cybernetic eye told me she was alive, but that hardly meant she was in good condition. “Fuck… she needs to see a doctor, now.”

I picked the girl up and practically bolted out the front door, Charm following as close behind as she could.

I didn’t even care if people saw me with my cloak on. I just ran and ran until the clinic was in sight.

Damn fool. Almost killed herself to save us. I wasn’t about to let that go in vain.

***

I stepped out of the clinic and gently closed the door behind me. Charm followed close behind, her head low in dejection.

“What’d the slumdoc say?” asked Fujiko. She and Ryou had followed me but waited outside.

“It’s… not great, but fixable. Gonna take a couple days but she should be alright.” I rubbed my arm, still feeling guilty over the whole ordeal. “He also said if she ever tries the same trick, she might never be able to walk again.”

“A-ah…”

The three of us went silent. Despite all the mistrust we had placed on her, Nabiki had damn near sacrificed herself to keep us alive.

All for a fight that could very well be pointless.

“…I have to face Aki.”

“Fuck no, you do not, Toki.”

“The hell else can I do, Fuji? You heard what she said. We’ve been played for fools this whole time.”

“So what? You’re gonna walk straight into the trap she just told you she laid for you?”

“As if there’s any other choice!”

“Of course there is! We’re magical girls, you fool, there’s always another choice! We could…” Fuji thought on it for a second. It didn’t take a genius to see she was grasping at straws. “...we could tear the system down by hand. Destroy every corporation in the city- no, the whole damn country. She’s just one woman, we can take her power away by kicking her feet out from under her.”

“Even if we could do that with the whole damn state opposing us, remember what she said about everything we’d done so far? How everything was replaceable? That we could only destroy what we did because she didn’t need to intervene?”

“Then we break shit till there’s nothing left to replace it! Build the whole damn country again from scratch if we have to!”

“And how many people would have to die for that plan to stand even a snowball’s chance in hell?”

“As many as it damn well takes to get the job done!”

“How is that better than fighting just one woman?!”

“Because you can’t beat her!”

“No, Fuji, you can’t beat her. I’m the only who can.”

Fujiko grabbed me by the neck of my cloak and slammed against the clinic wall, her face a mixture of anger and desperation.

“You. Will. Die. Toki. How do you not get that, you damned fool!”

“If I don’t beat her we’re as good as dead anyway! She knows who we are! She knows where we are! There’s no other option!”

“So what, you’re just gonna sacrifice yourself for us? Who do you think you are, the damned Messiah?!”

“If that’s what it takes then so be it!”

“For fuck’s sake, Toki, I lost you for three years, I’m not letting you leave me again!”

Fuji loosened her grip as her voice broke completely. She lowered her head, her hands trembling as she sobbed into my chest.

I put my hand on the back of her head and embraced her. I felt guilt swelling inside me. I hadn’t stopped to consider how those closest to me would feel about this. It wasn’t just my burden, it was theirs as well. If I faced her and threw my life away, I wouldn’t be saving them. I’d just be making them suffer.

Even still, I knew what I had to do.

“...I have to face her, Fuji. I don’t want all this death and bloodshed to be for nothing. I don’t want to let this horrid status quo continue knowing I might have the power to change it. I… have no other choice.”

Fuji continued to sob into my chest, but it wasn’t her voice that answered me.

“Toki’s right. Avoiding the situation is no solution. She and I have to do this.” Time slinked out from behind Ryou’s legs. I hadn’t even noticed she was there. “My brother’s tyranny has held long enough. Only Toki and I can end it.”

“Of course that’s the case,” said Ryou, tapping her finger on her crossed arms, “which is exactly why we will be accompanying you.”

“What? Ryou, do you not remember what just happened?” I asked incredulously, “how you couldn’t even move against Aki.”

“Of course, and obviously none of us will be able to provide any assistance against the woman herself. But do you truly believe she means to take you on fairly? That she won’t pull some underhanded trickery to weaken you before you make it to her?”

“What are you implying, Ryou? That she’s just gonna have an army kill me for her?”

“She’ll have an army slow you down. She knows how you fight, she knows you have immense skill but lack stamina. Do you not think it’s likely she’ll bank on that advantage?”

“I…” as much as I hated to concede it, she wasn’t exactly wrong. “...so, what? You’re gonna give me the secret service treatment? Carry me there like some sort of helpless VIP?”

“If that’s what it takes to make sure you meet your foe at full strength, so be it.”

“That’s…”

It was an idea I hated. There was nothing really stopping Aki from just crushing them at any time. Her power really was that overwhelming. But at the same time…

“I think she’s right, Toki,” said Time. “If we’re gonna do this, we can’t take any unnecessary risks. If that means having our friends cut our way through to our objective… I think it’s the best approach.”

I wanted to rebut, but I just couldn’t think of anything to say. Ryou looked completely unwilling to budge. And Time herself seemed pretty adamant.

When I failed to say anything, Fujiko raised her tear-stained face from my chest.

“You’re a damned fool if you think I’m letting you go alone,” she choked, pulling down on my shirt. “You hear me? Together, or not at all, got it?”

Looking at the three faces before me, I knew I had no argument left to make.

“...dammit all. I guess we’d better open that envelope. Together.”