Do You Even Know What Chaos Is?!

The guards inched their way towards us, ready to use their magic on us at the sound of a pin dropping. They probably would have done so had it not been for a strange metallic voice calling out in the distance.

“Stand down.”

The guards did as the voice commanded, and returned to their original posts. The voice then turned its attention to us, with an almost wind chime-like quality to it.

“Hello, hello, hello…”

An older man emerged from the shadows inside the factory. His face was painted in a kabuki-style design, with waves of blue, green, and purple forming around his bony facade. Despite the fancy face paint, the man wore a blue business suit and black dress shoes. Around his neck was a box-like device which I assumed he used to communicate.

“I am Count Franz, leader of the Third Coven,” the man introduced himself to us. “I am so glad you could join us. I presume you are here to offer your unconditional surrender.”

I glanced at Apollo, hoping he had come up with a plan for when we got past the front entrance. The look he gave me in response indicated that he did not. Wonderful… I had to come up with the plan very quickly so as to not arouse the Count's suspicions.

“I'm here to discuss terms for my surrender,” I lied. “But as you may know-”

“There will be no terms, child,” the Count interrupted me. “I said this was an unconditional surrender.”

“There's still a whole process to this,” I continued. “My Hollow needs to be returned to me first.”

“That I cannot do, child,” the Count countered. “You will surrender your powers now or I will take them by force.”

Either the Count knew about the convoluted Hollow contract laws or he didn't care. This was going to be a difficult maneuver.

“I hope you understand,” I insisted, “I cannot just give you my powers. The contract between my Hollow and myself has to be broken first. And then the Hollow will bestow my powers to you. But he has to be released in order for this to be done.”

“This is a trick, child,” the Count answered stubbornly. “As soon as I release the Hollow, you'll be able to transform and that will make my job here much more difficult.”

“Ayame, can't we just blow stuff up and get out of here?” Apollo asked.

“Zip it,” I told him.

“You seem unwilling to part with your powers, child,” the Count's voice grew stern and somehow even more metallic. “Guards, seize the girl. Make sure the boy cannot interfere.”

The guards went after us in groups of two. This was the opening I was looking for. One pirouette! Two pirouettes! Three pirouettes! Four! “Boogie Blitz!!” Everyone within earshot of me was forced to dance like there was no tomorrow. Unfortunately, this also meant Apollo was also forced to dance against his will. A funky disco beat filled the air.

“Ayame?” Apollo asked. “Help!!”

“Sorry,” I told him. “The spell should wear off in ten minutes!”

“I'll be lucky if my legs are still intact in ten minutes!” Apollo cried out.

I ran over to the cages, which I found to be very conveniently round, perfect for rolling them out the door. First was Aichi, whose cage I turned into a bowling ball. I rolled the Aichi Ball perfectly out the front entrance of the factory, much to Aichi's annoyance and puppy whimpers. I knew that company bowling trip back in March would come in handy some day!

Before I could get to Fumiko, however, I got zapped with a sudden lightning spell.

“I am ninety-six years old, child, and deaf in one ear,” the Count explained. “Your dancing spells have little effect on me.”

“Ninety-six?!” I asked in shock and horror. “I can't beat up a senior citizen! Magical girls are supposed to have standards!”

“Agents of chaos have no such standards, child,” the Count answered. He then sent more lightning in my direction. A projectile flying at me at the speed of light was just too fast for me to react to. I couldn't even cast Pulse Field in time. The second shot hit harder than the first, as it sent me flying out the front entrance and straight into a brick wall.

“Ayame, you need to get me out of here if you want to win ~woof,” Aichi told me, still trapped in the anti-magic ball.

“How am I supposed to do that, Aichi?” I asked him. “That's an anti-magic barrier keeping you locked in!”

“Try throwing me against that brick wall over there, ~woof,” Aichi explained.

I did as Aichi suggested, and tried to throw the Aichi Ball at the wall of the nearby building. It didn't work very well…

“~woof, all that magical strength and you can't break a simple cage?” Aichi asked.

“I'm trying, okaaaaaaaahhh!” I said, interrupted by yet another blast of lightning.

“Those cages are made of the strongest steel known to man, child,” the Count explained as he zapped me with yet another bolt of lightning. Seriously, was that the only spell he knew? “You'll never be able to break it in a million years!”

“Maybe I can give it a try!” a voice called out as a bamboo staff shot forward, hitting the Count square in the gut.

As the Count cried out in pain, I turned to see who threw the staff. It was Sayori, who seemed to always be dressed in that delinquent schoolgirl uniform. She must have been here to rescue Fumiko.

“Sayori, our Hollows have been locked inside anti-magic cages,” I explained to her.

“Good thing I don't need magic to break the cages, then,” Sayori smirked. She grabbed Aichi's cage and lifted it high into the air.

“Hey, uh… ~woof, can we talk about this?” Aichi asked as she did so.

“Here's what I think about your stupid anti-magic!” Sayori screamed as she slammed the cage into the ground with all her strength. Upon impact, the cage shattered into dozens of pieces, shutting off the anti-magic barrier and freeing Aichi from his prison.

“Thank you!” I shouted as Sayori ran to find Fumiko.

“You can thank me by defeating the rest of these bad guys while I rescue the other Hollows,” Sayori answered plainly.

“Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Staying alive! Staying alive!” Apollo sang as his forced dancing continued. Sayori saw him just long enough to look back at me with an incredibly disappointed look on her face.

“I'm not even going to ask,” she said as she entered the factory.

Sure enough, someone had called for backup as six more hooded guards ran down the street to meet us. Aichi and I stood ready for battle.

“Aichi, are you ready?” I asked him.

“Maybe… as soon as my bones get back in the proper places ~woof,” Aichi replied. He had obviously been shaken up pretty badly by Sayori.

“Flower Power! Rise Up, pretty pretty please!”

The Count ran away from the scene as I transformed and as the backup guards arrived to fight us.

“You have not seen the last of me, child!” the Count shouted as he made his retreat. “I will have my revenge on Obon!”

The guards arrived at the scene, each armed with a metal staff, perfect for me to try to make light work of each of them with my own staff. It seemed these guards were not magical, as they were not using any magic to fight, only what I assumed were kendo moves. Six vs. one was not a good matchup under normal circumstances, but with magical strength and agility on my side, I could match their technique with raw force. One by one, they were defeated with relative ease.

As I defeated the last of the guards, Sayori began tossing the remaining cages at the nearest brick wall, shattering them and freeing the trapped Hollows.

“Alright, we came, we saw, we smashed and grabbed,” Sayori told me as she exited the factory. “Let's get out of here!”

“We gotta wait for the dancing spell to wear off,” I answered. “Can't leave without my +1.”

“Your +1?” Sayori asked, confused. She then saw Apollo, still dancing his heart out. “Right…”

•

It took no time at all to return home, thanks to Apollo's teleporting spell. Once we did, we decided to all go our separate ways. It turned out Sayori lived in Osaka, Apollo not too far from me, and Tsukiko had settled down with a family in Okinawa. All that was left was sorting out the matter of the lamb Hollow.

“Baa!! Meh-baa!!” the lamb Hollow said to us, clearly happy to have been rescued, but we still had no idea what she was saying.

“Who do you think she belongs to, Aichi?” I asked.

“She might not belong to anyone yet,” Aichi answered.

“Shouldn't you know?” I then asked. “Clearly she's part of your little Hollow gang looking for people to recruit into becoming magical girls.”

“That's the thing, ~woof,” Aichi explained. “That should be true, but I've never seen this Hollow before in my life.”

“Baa! Baa-mm-baa!” The lamb Hollow continued to cry. She had to have been important, as she was captured just like the other Hollows. But without a way to understand what she was saying, we had no way to help her.

She must have thought we were refusing to help her, as she turned around to walk away from us in a huff. Before we could stop her, she was gone. Unable to do anything else, we simply walked home, victorious against the Third Coven, but defeated against this little lamb.

•

When we got home, another note was found nailed to our front door.

“Another one?” I asked. “This Third Coven sure does like to send me threatening letters, huh?”

“Well, what does it say, ~woof?” Aichi asked. “I can't see from down here!”

The note said:

What is it you want?

Chaos is a ladder, child.

Autumn is coming.

Fields of flowers wilt

Bon Odori brings darkness

Honor is no more

Crickets sing a song

Where have all the heroes gone?

The endless war reigns

“Ugh… I hate haiku…” I said as I crumpled up the note. I then immediately changed the subject as I opened the door. “I sure hope mom made more of that yakisoba, just without the takoyaki…”

“You could always give me the takoyaki, ~woof,” Aichi told me. “Wink wink.”

“Do you actually like takoyaki?” I asked.

“Listen, ~woof,” Aichi answered. “I might not need to eat food, but I still like to eat something that's not magic (or kibble) every now and again.”

I giggled at Aichi's answer. “Okay, I can see if Mom will let you have some of that takoyaki.”