What's With All These Brave Charms Not Working?!

The Brave Charm at last appeared before me. Sure took its sweet time, at that. Are you serious?! A bouquet of flowers? What was I supposed to do with that?

Alright, so the Brave Charms haven't been working out. It was time for Plan C: toss the flowers aside and launch another head-on attack. I wasn't sure what had come over me, but whatever it was,my movements (and by extension, my dancing) were becoming much faster and more involved. Never before had I been able to chain spells together in such a way.

“Blizzard Bluster! Whirlwind! Hide Away, Hide Away!” I shouted with all the strength I could find, throwing ice and wind at my opponent, before vanishing from his view. I had the advantage now. All that I needed to do now was to hold onto it. Just do that and win, I thought to myself.

But the King remained one step ahead of me. As soon as I reappeared ten meters above him, he grabbed me with one of his arms, dragging me back down to the forest floor. How… How did he see that coming…? He dragged me closer to him. Oh gods, what was he planning? All that extra strength was useless if I couldn't dance.

I tried one last desperate spell, one that required no dancing to cast at all. “Summon Hollow!” Aichi appeared nearby as expected, ready for action, but he was not the only Hollow to appear out of nowhere.

Hideaki screamed as he rolled onto the scene, quite literally throwing himself at the King in a frenzied attack. Despite being so small, Hideaki launched his little bubble with such force that it successfully knocked the King down. Even the rough landing could not faze the little bunny.

“If anyone is going to defeat these magical girls,” Hidekai declared in defiance, “it will be me, ~nanoda!”

“Hideaki?!” I was shocked to see him appear so suddenly. “What are you doing here?”

“Hmph,” the little bunny scoffed. “Don't start thinking I like you or anything ~nanoda. I still plan on defeating you later.”

“Kinda hard to do that when you're still trapped inside that bubble,” I replied back, a bit matter-of-fact but also with a pinch of snark added in for good measure.

“Whatever,” Hideaki said, turning his back to me. “Third time's the charm, as they say. Fire off your best Brave Charm, why don't ya?”

I nodded before performing the “Brave Charm!” dance for a third time. All I could have done from there was hope that Hideaki was right and this spell would work. My hands glowed with radiant magical energy, which formed a beam headed for Aichi.

“~woof, that tickles!” Aichi giggled as the magic did its work. He grew to twice his size, then five times his size, growing bigger and bigger until he was six hundred times larger than his normal size.

The giant Aichi towered over the tops of the trees; only the mountains loomed overhead for him.

“Aichi!” I shouted at him. “Do you know the sealing spell?”

“~woof, I think I read about it in the book,” Aichi replied, with his speech being loud and strong enough to shake even the most durable of trees. “Let's see… By the power of Frith Above, seal this magic away!”

At first nothing happened.

“Don't worry,” Hideaki assured us. “It takes a while for the magic to -”

Hidekai was interrupted by a sudden pulling force, attempting to drag all of us into the nearby mountain. Something was telling me Aichi missed a word somewhere. Not only was the King of the Yokai sucked into the mountain, but many other yokai were getting sealed away as well, but also us. I had to hide behind a large boulder just to avoid getting pulled. Hideaki bounced into a tree to do the same.

As Aichi returned to his normal size, he had to grab onto a tree just to avoid getting caught in the sealing spell. I scolded him, “Aichi, what the fluff did you do?!”

“~woof, I cast the sealing spell,” was Aichi's immediate answer. “Just like Hideaki showed me in the book!”

Sachiko and Shōko nearly flew past us, but I managed to catch them both, one in each hand. “Sachiko, where's your copy of the book?”

“~bo peep, it should still be in here somewhere,” the little lamb answered, pointing to her fur. She reached into the fluff in search of the book, and immediately opened it to the page in question as soon as she pulled the book out. As I had expected, there was a word in Sachiko's copy of the book that Aichi didn't say: wicked.

Hideaki nearly flew past us, his original plan failing because he was still inside a ball, but Shōko caught a hold of him.

“You!” she scolded him. “This was your doing, wasn't it?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about, ~nanoda,” Hideaki replied back. “It's not my fault Aichi hasn't been taking care of the book!”

“You were the one who just said If anyone is going to defeat these magical girls, it will be me,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, eventually.” Hideaki was persistent. “This was not part of my plan at all ~nanoda!”

The sealing spell was definitely working, albeit too well, sucking in all of the yokai, but also possibly other magical creatures.

“Now what do we do?” I asked in despair. My arms weren't able to hold onto everyone else forever.

“There is a way to adjust the power of the spell,” Hideaki tried to tell us.

“No!” all the rest of us shouted back at him. He had done enough damage to last us a lifetime.

“Just trust me, ~nanoda,” Hideaki pleaded. “If you don't let me do this, we'll be sealed away forever!”

I hated to admit it, but we really had no other choice.

“What's your plan?” I asked him.

“We just have to say, By the power of Frith Above, seal the yokai away!” he explained.

“By the power of Frith Above, seal the yokai away!” we all shouted at once.

For a while, we were still being pulled by the sealing spell.

“Again, it takes a while for the spell to -”

Hideaki was once again interrupted by the sealing spell. This time, however, we were released from its grasp. The nightmare had at long last ended.

Something did not sit right with me, though… Hideaki said it took the equivalent of six hundred Hollows to cast the sealing spell. It only took two magical girls and three Hollows to adjust the power of the sealing spell and calm it down.

That, however, was a puzzle for another time.

•

We arrived back in Susaki to find the whole city had calmed back down. So as to not draw attention to ourselves, we found a nice tall office building to hide behind while Shōko and I changed back to our normal clothes.

“Star Soldier was not kidding,” Shōko told us. “This is a really effective way to change clothes.”

“And not a moment sooner,” I added. “Someone’s coming!”

That someone was my boss, Mr. Kaneko, running towards us and shouting my name. I most certainly hope he didn't see us flying into town… The Hollows made themselves scarce while Shōko and I had to deal with him.

“Ayame! There you are!” Kaneko shouted. “I've been looking all over Susaki for you!” He grabbed a hold of my hand and dragged me off, explaining more of why he was looking for me as we made our way back to the Journal. “The whole city erupted into a frenzied riot and we need all hands on deck to get the big scoop! We're talking about interviews, pictures, and more! Mr. Doro will be very happy to see we got the news first!”

It was home sweet home, I guess…