My Friend, My Enemy

“Hey Minny?”

“Yeah?”

“Where did you get that cat?”

Kaneko pointed to a black cat that Minny was swaddling in her arms. It was wearing a little witches hat, which was pretty cute.

“This is Cat. You’ve met him.” Minny explained.

Kaneko looked back on her memories. “Oh yeah. You’re that talking cat that made me pass out on the first night. It's been a while. What have you been up to?”

The cat didn’t answer. Kaneko looked from the cat to Minny.

“Why isn’t he talking?”

“Well, cats don’t normally talk.”

Kaneko looked at Minny, and then at the cat, and then back to Minny. “What kind of explanation is that? I’ve literally heard it speak before. Who cares if it's not normal. None of this is normal!”

“Well, he is a cat. I wouldn’t expect him to be cooperative with everything you expect him to do.” Minny smiled earnestly.

“He seems to let you do whatever you want to him.” Kaneko argued.

Minny countered, “Well, a witch has to have a black cat! He’s a part of the costume!”

The pair was walking towards a halloween festival that was hosted at the school every year. It was basically a small carnival, with games and some inflatable jungle gyms. It was open to the entire community, so you’d often find families there, but it was apparently still common for students to attend as well.

It was also normal for people to show up in costume, considering the festival was held on Halloween night itself. Minny had chosen to be a witch for Halloween, sporting a black dress and Mary Janes, as well several accessories that added significantly to the ascetic. Minny was “supporting the witch agenda” in her own words, which obviously had to include a cat and a hat and a smaller hat for said cat. Kaneko was impressed with Minny’s dedication to the holiday.

Kaneko, on the other hand, decided that she’d wear her normal clothes. Due to Minny’s pestering however, Kaneko relented and painted on a bite mark on her neck as well as got a set of plastic fangs.

Kaneko grumbled while Minny continued, “Anyways, we are in public. It would be weird for him to be open about talking.”

“I guess.” Kaneko huffed before changing the subject. “Are you even sure we should be going to this? We have an alien super monster who’s trying to destroy us, and we don’t even know where it is.”

Minny clicked her tongue. “I don’t know, it's been a few weeks since Ace got possessed and stuff. It's probably just a load of hot air.”

“You honestly think that?”

Minny didn’t respond, instead clutching the cat slightly tighter before rushing toward the school. Kaneko didn’t bother to catch up with her, figuring that they’d find each other inside. As she got closer to the gate though, Kaneko realized how many people were actually there. It was crowded, at least at the entrance. It was pretty easy to see that there were quiet places around, at least, but Kaneko was hesitant to go in. There weren’t a lot of escape routes other than jumping a fence, which wasn’t ideal. Kaneko paused at the edge of the crowd.

She let out a long low breath, before walking in. She had to find Minny and get somewhere safer.

Once Kaneko got inside the gate, it became a lot easier to actually walk around or, at least, choose a direction. She decided to go down one of the alleys of booths. She walked slowly, weaving in between the crowd and looking around. Passively, Kaneko checked out all the various games and snacks that were available, but she kept reminding herself to watch for Minny.

Periodically, Kaneko would stand on the tips of her feet to get some view of the crowd around her. She was looking for the big black witches hat, which should have been easy to spot, but it was nowhere around.

After walking through what she thought was the entire venue, Kaneko didn’t spot Minny anywhere and was starting to get anxious. She wanted some vantage point to look at the place from above. She was surprised when she looked around for something like that and almost immediately found something that would work.

In between the open field that the fair was set up on, and the baseball field was a sizable hill with bleachers on top. It should be a fantastic vantage point. Kaneko lets out a sigh of relief when she spots it and starts to make her way over to it through the crowd.

Walking up, Kaneko noticed that there were people up there already, talking. They were far enough away at that point that Kaneko couldn’t make out what they were saying, but as she approached, she noticed someone else.

Standing apart from the group of girls that were talking amongst themselves, was Sylvia. While the other 3 were sitting and standing on the bleachers, Sylvia was leaning up against the side, staring out at the festivities below. When she noticed Kaneko, she jumped. She was trying to be subtle about it, but it was pretty clear that she was nervous.

She was wearing a letterman’s jacket for the school along with jeans and high-top sneakers. She also had these big furry gloves and wolf ears on a headband. She had a small black piece of makeup on her nose that completed the look.

“Hi Kaneko…” She said, looking at the ground.

“Hi…” Kaneko responded. “Is something wrong? Can you remember which teacher we share or… how many students were in your 9th grade history class?”

This line of questioning made Sylvia seem even more nervous. “Wha~? I- I- I don’t know. Why are you asking me?”

“Just making sure.” Kaneko asked, squinting her eyes. “We don’t know each other that well, so it would be hard to tell if something bad happened.”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t know. Disregard.” Kaneko said, giving up.

“Okay…”

“You’re feeling okay though? You were gone for like a week and you haven’t spoken to me or Minny since.” Sylvia gave another confused face before Kaneko continued. “Minny’s been talking about it. I don’t really care.”

“Oh. Oh… Okay. Actually, I’ve been meaning to tell you something, but I don’t really know how to say it. And besides, it is mostly for Minny anyway.”

“You can tell me if you want to, I don’t care.”

“Right. I-” Sylvia sighed before she started, “I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“For being a jerk?”

“Yeah.”

“You were right, you should just tell that to Minny.” Kaneko said, matter of factly.

Sylvia looked at Kaneko with a pathetic expression. “That’s it?”

“I don’t care what you’re doing. You’re not my friend... Minny, on the other hand, cares a lot about a lot of things. I know she’d appreciate it. Besides, you were mostly a jerk to her.” Kaneko gives the slightest of smiles. Sylvia could probably barely tell if it was there, if she saw it at all.

“Okay. Okay. You know what?” Sylvia said, exacerbated. “I’ll go find her. You’re not gonna take it seriously, so where is she?”

“I… actually don’t know.” Kaneko responds.

“Really? Usually you two are attached at the hip!”

“Yeah, well… Not so much. Things have been off. I can’t… Whatever. You don’t need to hear about this.” Kaneko declared, moving right past Sylvia to get a better vantage point on the bleachers.

Two voices came from behind her as Sylvia walked around to follow Kaneko.

“Sylvia, who’s this girl? She’s being kinda weird and getting in our personal space.”

“Yeah Sylvia, do you know her?”

Kaneko ignored them as she scanned the populated alleys of the fair. She saw plenty of tall guys and kids on their parent’s shoulders, but for her life, Kaneko couldn’t see that hat or Minny’s hair or anything! It was starting to bother her…

Something was wrong. A feeling in Kaneko’s gut started to reveal itself. Her stomach felt tight, like she was in 2 separate corsets at once. She started to tap her hand against the railing. She’s been feeling like this ever since Ace got transformed that second time.

“What’s wrong? Do you see her?” Sylvia asked as she sidled up the steps.

Sylvia looked out over the crowds and almost instantly exclaimed, “There! She’s getting yelled at by someone! We gotta go help her!”

Sylvia turned to look at Kaneko, but by the time she did that, Kaneko had already jumped down all the steps and had taken off toward the spot that Sylvia had pointed out.

“Really? Come on!” Sylvia sighed before rushing down the steps herself.

Her friends called after her. “You’re going back down? Wait up! We’re gonna come too!”

“Sylvia, slow down!”

〰

Kaneko was running with more effort than she had since middle school. She was still sore from training the day before, but she didn’t let that stop her. She knew she had to get there as quickly as possible. Kaneko ducked through the crowds until she got to the side of some booths, where a few benches were set up so people could sit or eat or whatever.

Minny was there, holding a half eaten corn dog and looking down as someone with a thick accent stood in front of her and berated her. Minny, who usually filled up an entire room, looked the smallest Kaneko had ever seen her.

“Do you know how expensive this jacket was? I brought it with me from Korea! I’d have to import it now, and it’s out of stock anyway! What were you thinking?!”

It was a girl. Around Kaneko and Minny’s age. Her accent was strange. There was definitely some Korean in there, but there was also some Japanese and something else that Kaneko couldn’t put her finger on.

She was wearing what looked like an, admittingly, pretty-expensive looking jacket with black and white triangles all over. Her entire outfit seemed very fashionable and probably designer. Her pants were a strange material. It was almost like black velvet, but it seemed to almost flow, like tall grass in the wind.

Her hood was up and she was wearing a mask which covered the rest of her face. The mask was spiraled and lit up with small LEDs which added some animation and color to the thing. Unlike the rest of her outfit though, the mask seemed pretty cheap, as far as fashion items with batteries required are concerned.

Kaneko quickly intervened in whatever thing the girl was turning her argument into.

“Why are you even putting mustard on a corn dog! Everyone knows that ketchup is everything! Plus it's thicker, so it's harder to spray on innocent bystanders-”

“Hey lady.” Kaneko snarled. “Get away from my friend. It doesn’t matter. Buzz off.”

“What are you talking about? You don’t even know what happened..”

The girl's aggressions instantly transferred to Kaneko as she kept talking about whatever and whatever. Kaneko didn’t care. She wasn’t listening. Instead, she slowly raised her sleeve, brandishing her muscles like a gun.

Quickly the kid’s voice petered off as she gave a small but definite, “Fine.” Before wandering off into the crowd.

Minny looked up at Kaneko before tears started to form in her eyes. “Kaneko?”

Kaneko quickly slid in front of her cousin, “Are you hurt? What’s wrong?”

Minny paused to wipe her eyes with one of the napkins she was given with her food before explaining. “I didn’t even do anything, but by the time she started yelling, I couldn’t do anything. I thought I was getting better! I thought being… magic would help with that. But I’m the same person I was before I got this.”

Kaneko didn’t know what to say, so she tried to look sympathetic at least. She wasn’t convinced that she had pulled it off. Minny pulled out her wand from her bag and looked at it for a few moments. There was something in her eye, a look Kaneko had seen before, somewhere. Before either of them could continue, a large “Crash!” rang throughout the field.

“What was that?” Kaneko jumped to her feet.

“It’s back?” Minny asked, panicking.

Kaneko stepped up onto the bench, but she still couldn’t see over the booth’s tents. “I don’t know. We have to check it out. Where do we…” Minny followed Kaneko’s line of sight as she looked for someplace they could transform. “There!”

When Minny finally saw what Kaneko was referring to, she cringed. “Seriously? Who ever heard of a Magical girl changing in the porta potty?”

Kaneko didn’t pay any attention to her cousin’s negativity, rushing towards the open toilets. Minny reluctantly followed.

Less than a minute later, the two emerged from the stalls having transformed into their magical girl costumes. An outside observer would have been very confused by the fact that 2 girls ran into the bathrooms and 2 other girls ran out, but there were no outside observers. The totality of the crowds were all focused on whatever that noise was.

Sukeban and Pastel Princess shudder before sprinting over to the site of the noise. Kaneko was going much faster than Minny, who seemed to have some trouble keeping up.

They arrived at a large crowd, who were all looking at a broken carnival ride, one of those UFO’s that spin and make you stick to the wall. In the roof, was a detached streetlight, which apparently had been hucked through. Only the top half was sticking out.

And standing on top of that was a dark figure. A girl with a nearly completely black leotard. It covered her legs completely, but it didn’t have any sleeves, which almost made her look like floating arms and a mask. The same mask as that girl that was going off on Minny, with the spiraling LEDs.

“So you finally decided to change costumes!” The same voice called.

Kaneko ran into the open space that the crowd had left in front. “We were a little busy!” Kaneko responded, trying not to give anything away.

“But now we’re here!” Minny added, as people moved and created a wall that trapped everyone inside this fairly small space. “And we’re gonna stop you! This is supposed to be a fun place for people of all ages to enjoy Halloween, and you decided to ruin it!”

The girl shrugged and jumped off of the UFO, an almost 15 foot fall, but she landed it perfectly. “I honestly don’t care. The only thing that I need to do is get rid of you two. Nothing else about this matters. My father just needs you gone!”

Kaneko’s eyes widened. “You’re… You’re the thing we fought last month!” Kaneko held up her tape gun, ready to attack or defend. “Where have you been? Getting some other poor person to possess.”

“Yes! As a matter of fact, I was. And you know what? This body feels a lot better than the last one. Sure, the muscles weren’t as nice, but I have ways of compensating. The real fun part is yet to be revealed though!”

Kaneko and Minny stood back, steeling themselves for whatever she was going to do next.

“This!” The girl began, theatrically. “Is the twist of the century!”

She spun around, pulling off her mask in a swift fashion. Her black hair was now flowing out behind her, but her face was still hidden. Then, in another quick turn, she revealed her face to the crowd. A smile was spread across it, like a child on their birthday.

Kaneko wanted to throw up. Her stomach felt tighter than it ever had in the past few years. What she saw was something she never thought she’d see again. An old friend. A new enemy. Now tears were beginning to form in her eyes and she rapidly came to realize that this wasn’t a nightmare.

“Naoko?”