CLIMAX!!! No time to be depressed! It's time to fight! [Part 1]

My heart beat a thousand times a minute as I raced home from Ten Flags. Tightly gripped in my hand was the black card Red Sandrea had flicked at me before taking Jack away.

“Cut this with your sword when you feel like rescuing your boyfriend,” were her parting words.

Of course, I wasn’t going to wait around to rescue Jack! But with my sword back at home, I had to take a detour to retrieve it. I didn’t know what cutting the card would do, but I imagined it would summon a portal leading to Jack.

I flew across the sky like a jet fighter, breaking the sound barrier. It was the fastest I had ever flown before, but the achievement was lost on me. I only had the capacity to think about Jack. Once I made it home, I quickly descended, crash-landing feet first into my backyard.

BOOM!

The resulting shockwave kicked dirt up into the air and rattled the windows of the house. Nearby cars sounded off their alarms, and the neighbors' dogs barked relentlessly from the sudden disturbance.

Without a moment to lose, I ran inside the house, bee-lined for my walk-in closet, and threw open the doors. My armor and pouch were laid out neatly atop a dresser, just where I had left them. Quickly, I threw off my clothes, put on my armor, grabbed my pouch, and then ran back outside.

I threw Red’s card on the grass and began searching for my sword within my pouch. When I felt it, I immediately gripped the hilt and pulled it out.

THUNK!

“Ah!”

The sword immediately escaped my grasp and sunk into the ground.

“What the,” I reacted.

The weight of the sword had caught me by surprise. Sure, I knew it was heavy, but I wasn’t prepared for how heavy it was. In fact, it felt heavier than normal.

I brushed it off, simply thinking that my worry for Jack made me careless.

I gripped the sword again and…

“Huh?!”

It wasn’t my imagination! My sword really was heavier! I tried to pick it up, but it felt like a thousand-pound weight.

This had never happened before. Why now of all times?

I stood over the sword and dug my fingers into the ground to get a good grip. With all my might, I tried to raise it, but I only managed to lift it a few inches off the ground before it slid out of my hands.

“What’s with this thing?!” I shouted, growing increasingly agitated.

It was the worst possible time to be struggling with my equipment. Jack’s life was on the line, and every moment I wasted was another moment something terrible could happen to him.

I gritted my teeth and kept trying. My arms shook as I began to tear up and sweat. Time and time again, I tried to lift my sword, only to experience failure each time. After one final attempt, giving it my absolute all, my feet slipped against the grass, causing me to fall backward and crash onto the ground.

“Why!?” I shouted, gripping the dirt between my fingers. “What’s wrong with me?! Why can’t I lift it?!”

I turned my head to Red’s card, still on the ground as if mocking me. If I couldn’t lift my sword to cut it, then there was no way for me to rescue Jack.

Then an idea came to mind. Red said I only needed to cut it with my sword, but she didn’t say that I had to be holding the sword to cut it!

What if I could cut the card by running it across the blade? There was just enough room between the sword and the ground to slip the card underneath. The sword was fairly sharp. Surely it’d work!

I grabbed the card and pressed it into the sword’s edge, but it was like the card knew I’d try an underhanded tactic like that. My sword couldn't even scratch it. It was like trying to cut through laminate with a butter knife.

“Darnit!” I cursed, throwing the card to the ground in anger.

Was I too powerless to save Jack? What was going to happen to him?

I bit my bottom lip as I began to cry, digging into the ground below me in frustration.

“Oh! Lune! You’re home early!”

The backyard light flipped on as Belliney stepped outside.

“I thought you wouldn’t be back until…” She trailed off, dropping her usual smile after seeing my current pitiful state. “What happened?!”

“Red Sandrea,” I sniffled. “She kidnapped Jack.”

Belliney stepped back in shock. “She did?!”

“She attacked Ten Flags while I was stuck on the Ferris Wheel with Jack as Daniel… I couldn’t do anything.”

I looked up at her, tears flowing down my cheeks. “Where were you?! I needed your help! I texted and texted and… Now Jack’s…”

Unable to hold it back anymore, I completely broke down. Belliney quickly ran over, dropping to her knees and embracing me. She rubbed the back of my head as I let loose all my pent-up emotions.

***

Once I had finished crying, I went inside my house with Belliney and explained everything that had happened. How I sat there and did nothing as Red went on the attack. How Jack put his life in danger to climb down the Ferris Wheel. How Red ultimately saved him while I just sat there and watched, completely useless. And so on.

We sat at the kitchen table. Belliney was silent the entire time I spoke, nodding along. Finally, after I finished my explanation, she willed into existence a cup of hot cocoa for me.

As usual, it was tasteless. Despite that, its warmth calmed me down.

“I see,” Belliney said, holding Red’s card between her fingers. “So you have to cut this card with your sword, and that’s how you can rescue Jack?”

I nodded. “But for whatever reason, I can’t lift my sword at all. It’s always been heavy, but now it’s heavier than usual. I can’t even get it off the ground to put it back into my pouch.”

Belliney clasped her hands together, watching me as I took another sip of the tasteless hot cocoa.

“Surely you have the power to send me to where Red Sandrea is, right? You’re basically a god! You have to help me!”

“But won’t that be cheating?” she asked.

“Huh?”

She stood up from the kitchen table and crossed her arms. “This mess was caused by your own actions, after all. And you want me to use my powers to help you cheat to solve your problem?”

“What?” I said, taken aback. “Aren’t you always helping me with this sort of thing?”

Belliney let out a sigh. “I do want to help you, Lune. But you have to understand that I won’t always be there to bail you out of your messes.”

I looked down at my cup and silently nodded. I’m not a little kid after all. I get that. But still…

“I know you’re very worried about Jack right now, but this is something you must face on your own,” she said.

I looked up at her. “But how?! I can’t even lift my sword up to go rescue him!”

She let out a sigh. “Do you know why you’re unable to lift it?”

For a moment I tried to think of an answer, but none came to mind. I always thought it was just heavy. However, there was the time at Kuma Cakes when I was able to swing it effortlessly.

“And you know why that is?” Belliney asked.

I shook my head.

“It’s because you were truly honest with yourself at that moment.”

“Huh?”

Belliney leaned over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “You absolutely loved that cake. There was no hesitation holding you back. Your feelings for it were pure and untainted.”

“So… What? Are you saying that I loved that stupid cake more than I love Jack? And what about all the other times I’ve struggled to wield it?”

“It’s because you weren’t being honest. Think about it. Every day you go about your magical girl duties, but at the same time, you’re constantly wearing a mask.”

“A mask?” I asked.

“You hide behind Magical Knight Lune instead of being Magical Knight Lune–”

“But that’s normal for this kind of stuff, right? Secret identities and whatnot?” I cut in.

“Let me finish. You hide behind Magical Knight Lune instead of being Magical Knight Lune. At the same time, you’re hiding behind Daniel instead of being Daniel.”

Belliney’s words confused me.

“Regardless of which form you take, you’re constantly putting up a front, acting out how you think Daniel and Lune are supposed to be. You do it to everyone, but especially to Jack.”

Belliney paused for a moment before continuing. “You swap between masks whenever you’re with Jack, and you change your behavior to better suit that mask. For example, you’ll go out to a restaurant with Jack as Lune, but then order something you’d never get normally because you feel that’s what ‘Lune’ is supposed to eat, not Daniel. On the flip side, you’ll walk through a haunted house with Jack, desperately wanting to cling onto him, and instead fling yourself into the wall like a ragdoll.”

“...Were you watching me all this time?”

“I’m not always actively watching, but I do always find out after the fact. I’m your magical girl partner, after all,” she winked.

More like a fairy godmother at this point…

“But do you get what I’m saying?” she asked. “Regardless if you’re Daniel or Lune, you are always lying to yourself and others around you. And that’s why you’ve never been able to fully wield the sword.”

“...And because of everything I’ve done today–”

“You have made it nearly impossible to wield it. As of right now, despite how you look, you are far from a magical girl.”

I lowered my head. She was right. A magical girl fights for love and friendship. But how could I fight for those ideals if I’m constantly lying and hiding from those I love?

Every day I’m living a lie, and those lies have led directly to my predicament. Of course, Belliney can’t just wave a magic wand and fix everything. If she did, then it wouldn’t solve the underlying issue, meaning this could happen again, and again, and again.

Belliney walked behind me and squeezed me into her arms. “But everyone makes mistakes. Even the gods. What matters is that you must confront those mistakes and correct them.”

“But how?” I asked. “What can I do?”

With a giggle, Belliney snapped her fingers.

***

In the blink of an eye, I found myself in a dark void. I nearly fell over as I was still hunched over a kitchen table that was no longer there.

“Where am I?! What happened?! Belliney?!” I shouted into the abyss.

I looked around, trying to figure out where I was exactly. Off in the distance, a spotlight shined brightly, illuminating a raised platform. A long flight of glowing stairs twisted and turned beneath the platform.

I squinted my eyes to get a better look and saw that the top of the platform had what appeared to be a gallows. Hanging by his wrists by his wrists was Jack.

“Jack!” I yelled.

I tried to summon my wings to quickly fly over, but they wouldn’t appear. When that failed, I broke out into a run.

The closer I got to the platform, the higher it seemed to rise into the air. It was like a mountain growing out of the ground with each step I took. Despite it, I kept on running toward it anyway.

I reached the base of the platform and scaled the glowing stairs when the wind began to pick up. At first, it was a gentle gust. But as I climbed higher, the wind grew stronger. And stronger. And stronger.

Soon, it felt like I was going up against a hurricane. One wrong step would send me flying down to the dark void. Despite that, I continued to push forward, shielding my eyes with my arms.

Finally, when I reached the top of the platform, it took every ounce of strength to take a single step. The raging winds deafened my ears, causing my long pink hair to fly hectically behind me. My boots slid backwards against the slick ground, but I continued fighting my way forward toward Jack.

“Jack!” I screamed against the raging storm. Jack glanced up at me, emotionless.

“I’ve come to rescue you!” I shouted.

“Liar.”

His voice cut through the roaring storm, bringing with it a wall of wind that knocked me back to the ground. I rolled and tumbled, nearly falling down the staircase. Catching the edge of the top stair just in time, I managed to hang on.

I felt like my arms were going to rip away from their joints at any moment, but I pulled myself up and got back to my feet.

“I’m not lying!” I shouted back. “I truly want to rescue you!”

“Why should I believe you?” he said, sending another burst of wind in my direction.

This time, I was able to brace for it and remain standing.

“Because I love you!” I yelled, taking a step forward.

“If you love me, then why do you continue lying?”

Another burst of wind nearly knocked me backward.

“Because…!”

I couldn’t move any closer. The wind was too strong. One wrong move now and I would be sent flying back with no way to save myself. This was it.

“It’s because… I was scared. I was scared of how you would feel about me. That you wouldn’t be able to love me back.”

“Liar.”

My feet slid backward, inching me toward the edge of the platform again.

“It’s not a lie! But that isn’t everything! I was also… lying to myself.”

Jack remained silent as the storm continued to rage.

“I pretended to be two different people, but that meant I was never truly myself. I masqueraded as a regular teenage boy and a magical girl. The reality is that… I’m neither one of those two people.”

I let down my arms, no longer fearing the gusts of wind.

“I am both of those people! I tried so desperately to juggle between two personas, mixing truth with lies to protect myself. But all that did was hurt me and those around me. From here on, I refuse to lie any longer!”

Sparkling light swirled around me, and I transformed out of Lune’s form. However, I didn’t transform into Daniel. Instead, I transformed into a combination of the two forms. Lune’s effeminate features mixed with Daniel’s shorter hair and complexion. My armor changed into the outfit I had picked for today’s date, including the sun hat that somehow managed to stay on my head.

“I am Daniel. And no matter what anyone says, I will love you forever as your girlfriend!”

The raging winds immediately ceased and the dark void was quickly replaced with blue skies. Large, fluffy clouds floated in the sky, reflecting off the slick platform beneath my feet.

The gallows had vanished, leaving Jack there to stand on his two feet. He looked at me with a gentle smile.

“And I love you.”

Tears once again swelled in the corners of my eyes. But this time, they were tears of joy. I ran toward him, arms flung open. I jumped into the air, diving in for a hug.

***

And then I was in the kitchen again, hugging Belliney tightly in my arms. I was once again Magical Knight Lune, armor and all. Caught off guard, I immediately let go and backed away.

Belliney, however, came back in for a hug and squeezed me as tight as she could.

“Now you’re ready.”