Are You Afraid of the Dark (Master)?!

A message was playing on every possible screen by the time we made our way to the conference room. The message was even playing on Shōko's phone, indicating that something was manipulating every screen everywhere.

“Citizens of this godsforsaken planet, I am the Dark Master, your new overlord,” the message played. “Life as it has been is over. From now on, you bow to me and serve me. Resisting me will only lead to your destruction. Thus says the Dark Master.”

That message from Kenichi, now calling himself the Dark Master, played on loop several times. Eventually, the incessant evil gloating was enough to make one of the people in the room, known only by her title of Director, shout “Can someone please shut this boy up?”

“Allow me.” A paw raised itself into the air, causing every screen in the conference room to break. I knew that voice anywhere… While everyone else got back to work, I approached the source.

“Aichi?!”

One of the chairs spun around to reveal the puppy himself, acting like nothing had happened last night.

“Aww, did you miss me ~woof?” Aichi asked me.

I got closer. “How did you…?! I saw you…”

“You saw me perform a little parlor trick ~woof,” Aichi explained. “A little bit of now you see me later, and now none of the Covens can find me.”

I said nothing.

“Listen, uh… I wanna -”

“Don't worry about it, Aichi,” I told him. “Just promise me you'll be more upfront with me.”

“~woof, you would not have wanted all that exposition dumped on you,” Aichi countered. “Nobody would have,” he added as he winked to… nobody in particular.

Also wanting to apologize, my dad walked up to me. “Sorry for that scare, Ayame. I needed to play up the performance so that the Covens wouldn't get suspicious.”

“So all that was just so nobody would find us?” I asked. Both Aichi and my dad nodded in response.

“Special Agent Tanaka,” the Director was the next to walk up to our little group. “I have your next assignment ready. You will escort these… magical girls… to Tokyo. Several monsters have been reported in the area.” Wow, it must have taken everything in her power not to call us witches.

“Will do, ma'am,” my dad told her.

“Wait…” I was confused. “So you don't think we're evil sorcerers?”

My dad and the Director were the first to burst out into a fit of hysterical laughter.  The rest of the room soon followed, including Aichi. My dad pulled me over to the other side of the room.

“Do you not read the newspaper you work for?” he asked me. “How could anyone think that the mystery girl who saved Susaki several times was evil?”

“But…” I tried to say. “I was told my magic was illegal…”

My dad then whispered into my ear, “If they weren't looking the other way, don't you think they'd have already done something about that?” That sent a shiver down my spine and back up again.

“Now,” my dad said as he snuck in a big hug, “let's go kick some evil sorcerer butt.”

Hearing Dad say that was so warm and fluffy that I couldn't help but smile.

•

The road, er, flight to Tokyo was quiet. That could have been because the engines of the Kawasaki C-2 aircraft we were in were extremely quiet. Otherwise, it was because nobody had much to say during the flight. Shōko had finally thought to bring her Hollow to her side, but the spell she cast was about all anyone said.

It took me long enough, but I finally found something reflective to look at to check myself out. Looking through the cargo hold window, everything seemed normal, except for one thing. Cat ears.

“Well, nothing’s perfect,” I told myself. “Gotta take the good with the bad.” Although, I noticed that I wasn't sneezing at the mere thought of having cat ears. The other thing I saw through the window was the first monster in the area, a giant jellyfish just gracefully floating past the window, apparently minding its own business.

Slowly, Tokyo came into view. The largest metro area in not only Japan, but in the entire world, Tokyo was roughly thirty-five million people packed like sardines inside a million hollowed-out dominoes. Compared to that, I would have much preferred the cosier space of a smaller city like Susaki. More and more monsters came into view as we approached Tokyo: lizards and kittens and birds, dragons and freaky fish and forms I couldn't even decipher. A rough count gave me about thirty giant monsters. All of them were either attacking the city… or attacking each other…

“We're approaching the drop zone,” my dad said over the intercom. “Prepare to teleport.”

“Couldn't we have just done that sooner?” Shōko asked.

“We need the three of you magical girls to have the element of surprise,” my dad explained. “It's the only thing we have to work with.”

“Wait… three of us?” I asked.

My dad continued, “You'll have a friend joining you once you get there.”

“You couldn't get her on the plane with us?” I asked.

“She… insists on doing things her own way…”

Dad's last answer made it clear exactly who he was talking about. Sayori.

Shōko and I held hands while cuddling our respective Hollows. Aichi gave the command, “Picture Perfect Position!!”

We were instantly taken to the observation deck of the Tokyo Skytree, the tallest building in Japan. To me, the building always looked incomplete and, as a result, unsafe, even though I should have known better. At 455 meters up, surrounded by glass that allowed us to see up to 70 kilometers in every direction, it was the worst possible place to be for someone who was afraid of heights. They must have wanted us to perform some sort of grand entrance.

“Who's that?” Shōko noticed someone was using a skateboard to make their way up the lattice structure of the Skytree. Only one person I knew would have even dared, let alone had the ability, to do that.

“That has to be Sayori,” I told her. Dressed as usual, Sayori skated up the middle of the tower much faster than an elevator would have. When the Skytree bulged outwards, she would jump up to that part of the tower with ease. When the tower suddenly narrowed, Sayori had a brand new trick of her sleeve. She sprouted wings, just like those of an angel. Using those, she simply flew all the way up to us, breaking the glass of the observation deck on her way inside. Despite the rough entrance, her landing was graceful and quiet.

“That's quite an entrance, Sayori,” I told her. Everyone else was a little less impressed.

“So the government dragged you into this, too?” Sayori asked us. We both nodded in response.

“All six of us together again, ~woof!” Aichi was excited at the prospect of all of us working together to defeat the giant monsters. “Shall we get started?”

“Ooo, a triple transformation, ~bo peep!” Sachiko added excitedly. “We've never done anything like this before!”

“~sss Let's do it!” Fumiko added. Even Fumiko was open to the idea.

“Well, it's not like we have anything better to do,” I admitted. “Aichi, let's do this!”

“Fumiko, let's fly!” Sayori added.

“Sachiko, let's shine!” Shōko added.

“Flower Power! Rise Up, pretty pretty please!” The three of us began to transform simultaneously. Aichi drew his iris sigil around my feet. Fumiko drew her wisteria sigil around Sayori's head. Sachiko drew her sakura sigil in front of Shōko. The iris sigil flew up to my face. Sayori grabbed the wisteria sigil and dragged it down to her feet. Shōko ran through the sakura sigil. All of our respective bows and ribbons appeared right where they were supposed to be. Finally, our respective weapons appeared before us. Our first team transformation was completed.

An annoying little man wearing a top hat and raccoon mask then appeared before us, flying outside the tower, his feet dangling 450 meters above the ground.

“Meteron!” I shouted at the man. “Get in here so we can punch your stupid face!”

“Ayame, not now,” Sayori stopped me.

“Wowee! Three magical girls in one location!” Meteron said with absolute glee. “Surely you have some kind of team introduction ready to go?”

The three of us exchanged very confused looks, much to the chagrin of Meteron. Of course, we all knew what he was about to say next.

“Ugh! You magical girls can't do anything right!” Meteron complained. “The three of you are supposed to introduce yourselves like you're in a Senshi show, then you strike a really cool pose and shout out your team name!”

“Oh!” Shōko realized. “It's just like in That Time I Was Confused for the Blue Ranger! I have an idea!”

The three of us huddled together to talk it through. Her idea was pretty clear.

“I'm the cute defender of justice, Magical Intern Ayame!”

“I'm the cool defender of justice, Magical Sukeban Fuji!”

“And I'm the sweet defender of justice, Magical Princess Sakura!”

I added, raising my staff into the air, “With the power of three, we'll chase away all evil!”

The three of us pointed our weapons at Meteron, shouting in unison, “Flower Squad Trillium, here to help!”

Meteron recorded the whole thing on his phone, though he wasn't sure how to feel about our completely improvised display. “Yeah…” he said, awkwardly pausing to find the rest of his words. “I uh… gotta go do… evil stuff elsewhere. Hide Away, Hide Away!”

In an instant, he was gone, leaving us to deal with the threat of thirty (or more?) monsters. While the monsters preferred fighting each other over destroying Tokyo, the city still suffered considerable damage simply because it was there. The monsters wrestled, tackled, tossed, scratched, scraped, and pushed each other around. They must have belonged to various Covens that summoned them to fight in their new Endless War.

And we had to somehow defeat… all of them…

“So, uh… how are we going to do this?” I asked Shōko and Sayori.

“I'll take them on now!” Sayori said, sprouting her wings and flying out of the Skytree. The rest of us could only watch as she tried to summon vines against one of the giant scaly lizards, only to be swatted away like a bug. Fortunately for her, she got swatted back into the Skytree through the already existing hole.

“Ugh… I feel like I just got stuffed into a matcha bun…” Sayori told us.

“That's an oddly specific way to describe what just happened,” Shōko noted.

Thirty giant monsters against three magical girls and their talking pets. Those were not good odds…