Before the carnival officially opened and fans flooded the park, all of the magic users in attendance needed to transform. The fans would expect to see them in their usual outfits, and the novelty of watching someone fly around or cast a simple spell would add to the fantastical atmosphere that the park’s decorations gave off. The only exception to this was for the members of Apex Vox, who were here as guests and insisted on staying in their casual clothes so as not to distract from any Region 4 team.
To be fair, they would stand out in a crowd with those animal ears of theirs.
With nearly a dozen magic users all transforming at once, the multicolored bursts of light from their magic looked like someone had set off fireworks inside the tent. Everyone’s transformations looked as Adah remembered except for one: Ekki’s.
Adah had heard he had recovered to the point of joining his team on lower ranked missions again, but had been too busy to see him in action yet. For the most part, Ekki’s transformation appeared the same, with his armor pieces plated over one another as intricately as the scales of a snake. His armor hovered, barely detached, from a tunic that hid the true form of his body behind a cloud of fog. What was different today was his right arm.
Extending from that shoulder’s pauldron was a limb made entirely of gray fog. The magical arm ended in a hand that was more like a claw, with four opposing fingers stretching out twice as long as any human’s would.
Ekki smiled upon seeing his fellow magic users staring at him. Adah was glad she wasn’t the only one looking so intently.
“Surprisingly, this looks more normal than trying to perfectly imitate a human arm,” he said, unperturbed by the stares. “I guess it fits my theme.”
“Can you use that like a prosthetic?” Ami asked.
“I can control it to some degree,” he said, “but I can’t grab or hold onto anything yet.”
He demonstrated by reaching above his head with the foggy arm flexing the claw-like fingers. With his other arm, he tapped a knuckle against a piece of his armor.
“This stuff is like real steel, though. I think it’ll be possible to get some use out of this arm eventually. If nothing else, I bet I could make it sturdy enough to catch myself if I start to fall.”
Ami, Seliah, and Elegia had all taken an interest in Ekki’s foggy limb, and practically surrounded him to get a closer look. He didn’t seem to mind this either, as he continued to move his arm around while they watched. Adah suspected each magical girl had their own reason for wanting to see his magic up close. Most likely, Ami simply found it cool. Seliah probably wanted to learn as much as she could from observing Ekki. As for Elegia… Adah decided not to theorize about what could have caught her interest.
Adah had expected Iris to break the crowd apart or pull Ekki away, but when she looked over at the DreamRise captain, Iris was simply staring back at her. Since they were both transformed, they could easily chat in private via a magic channel, so Adah reached out to her.
“What?” Adah asked. Simple yet effective.
Iris was silent for a while longer before finally answering, “I was wrong about you. It wasn’t just luck.”
“What does that mean?”
Iris paused again. She squinted at Adah for a few seconds, but soon her face went blank. She glanced around the tent, taking in all the sights, and never returned her gaze to Adah.
At the very least, this method of communication was still preferable to the girl’s usual backhanded compliments.
While Adah and Iris had their staredown, the magical girls surrounding Ekki had been bombarding him with questions. He was in the middle of answering one when Adah returned her focus to him.
“The bigger challenge has been energy,” he said. “I get tired out so easily now, like I’m totally out of shape. It’s crazy what sitting in a bed for a month and change can do to you.
That was certainly part of the explanation, but it wasn’t the whole story. That hydra had taken some of Ekki’s essence. Did essence replenish in time, like lost blood? Or was that piece of him gone forever? If so, what exactly had he lost? Those were even more questions to ask Izzy after this carnival was over.
“You should give him your workout routine, Selichi,” Ami said. “It worked wonders for you.”
“That’s just something I made up,” Seliah said. “I don’t know how useful it would be. It’s not like there’s any real science behind it.”
“Tell me all about it,” Ekki said with another smile. “I’ve seen the way you fight. If your training had anything to do with that, then I want to know about it.”
Seliah’s eyes went wide. Even beneath her oversized, floppy hat, it was obvious she was blushing.
“Huh?” she said. “You watched me?”
Ekki laughed and said, “I watched lots of local teams while I was in the hospital. Studying battle footage kept me sane. You might not pull as many fancy tricks as Heartbreak over there, but your fighting is pure. It’s inspiring stuff.”
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“T-Thank you!” Seliah nearly shouted.
Of course, Ami was unable to resist bullying the girl by pushing her witch hat down over her eyes yet again. Ami would need to be careful, though. Normally, she could abuse her size advantage to get away with her teasing, but Seliah could put up a real fight while transformed. And if Emi took Seliah’s side and ganged up on Ami…
Before anything like that happened, the three members of Apex Vox walked over from the side of the tent to join the rest of the magic users. They seemed to have been waiting for the Last Light’s arrival to smooth over any tension between them and DreamRise.
“Looking cool, everyone,” Sheffa said, waving to the group as she approached.
Claire, the only member of DreamRise who hadn’t joined in the conversation in some way thus far, immediately scowled and left the tent by herself.
Adah had no intention of trying to smooth that over. Luckily, Sheffa and her teammates didn’t seem to mind Claire’s rudeness one bit.
“I guess there’s still hard feelings, huh?” Sheffa said.
The Apex Vox captain looked at Iris, who merely returned Sheffa’s gaze without further reaction. So, she wasn’t only acting docile toward Adah today.
Seeing that, Sheffa grinned wide and said, “Maybe we should introduce ourselves to the unfamiliar faces. I see four people I don’t recognize. My name’s Sheffa, or Sheffa Surefoot, of Apex Vox from Region 2.”
“Canto Quickclaw,” Canto followed up. “Nice to meet you.”
Mari waved with both hands and said, “I go by Inarikari Pakamari!”
The Fifty Flip members all exchanged a glance, and Seliah squinted at Mari.
“You do what?” the little witch asked.
“That’s my name!”
“You can just call her Mari,” Canto said.
“Calamari Safari!” Hyperia shouted, trying her absolute best.
Dystopia sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Not even close,” she said.
From there, the three members of Fifty Flip and Seliah introduced themselves in turn. They had already gotten acquainted with each other and DreamRise before Adah and her teammates had returned to the tent, so it was only Apex Vox whom they were unfamiliar with. Dystopia introduced herself last, drawing an up-and-down inspection from Mari as she did so.
“Aren’t you freezing dressed like that?” she asked as soon as Dystopia finished speaking.
Dystopia’s transformation was exactly as it had been the last time Adah saw it. Her skirt was still more like a suggestion of clothing rather than a proper article of it, and her camisole did more to draw attention to the lace bra underneath than to hide it. Adah hadn’t gotten a very close look at the girl before she transformed, but the outfit she’d arrived in had definitely been more appropriate to the winter weather. She’d at least had on a simple black pea coat, a choice that Adah had found odd considering the rest of Dystopia’s style.
“Nah,” Dystopia said. “Whenever I feel cold, I just charge a spell without finishing it. Using magic keeps the blood warm. Like this.”
She held a fist out in Iris’s direction, with her palm facing up. As she channeled her magic, she slowly unfurled her fingers, causing a pitch black puddle to form underneath Iris’s feet. The DreamRise captain shrieked once she realized what was happening, and leaped back to get away from Dystopia’s puddle. At that point, Dystopia released her magic and started scratching her nose. Behind her hand, Adah could still spot a grin sneaking out of the corner of her mouth.
In response to this exchange, Adah observed a curious phenomenon. Two factions had emerged from this group of magic users.
First, there were those who laughed at this prank, henceforth referred to as the jovial ones. This faction included Ami, Emi, Hyperia, Dystopia, Sheffa, and Mari. The other faction, known from now on as the tactful ones, chose not to laugh at Iris’s embarrassment. This group included Adah, Rika, Ekki, Canto, Elegia, and Seliah. The important distinction between these groups was only that the tactful ones chose not to laugh. Both groups found it funny.
“It’s fortunate that I’m more responsible with my spells than some people,” Iris said as she stomped her way back to the group. “Otherwise I could keep you trapped in a flower bud for the rest of the day.”
“You should save something like that for your boyfriend,” Dystopia said.
“Of course you would make friends with the crassest magical girl in our region,” Iris said, turning toward Adah. Her face was well on its way to a tomato hue.
“Why am I being brought into this?” Adah protested. “I’m on the tactful side!”
“If you think I’m crass,” Dystopia said, “wait until you get to know these two.”
She gestured toward her teammates, neither of whom could contain their shock.
“I almost never swear!” Hyperia said.
Though she could be plenty vulgar without swearing.
“I’m not sure I understand what’s so crass about a thorough appreciation of beauty,” Elegia said with a finger on her chin.
In fact, it was the “thorough” part that was the problem. Adah didn’t feel like explaining what that meant to the rest of the group right now, though.
Sheffa moved beside Adah while all the other magical girls broke into a rapidly devolving argument over nothing.
“So this is your solution, huh?” Sheffa whispered to Adah.
“It’s the best I could come up with, anyway,” Adah said. “Even if things don’t pan out with finding a real replacement for Thibault, at least our teams will share some kind of bond. We can rely on each other even if we can’t rely on our Secretary.”
Sheffa glanced down at her and asked, “Can you afford to think like that at this stage?”
“I have to think this way. Bringing everyone together is more important than whatever happens at the Department. It’s what Thibault and the rest of them should have done in the first place. We need to know we can rely on each other. That we can trust each other. We can’t go on missions worried that, if we get into trouble, everyone around us is going to see it as a chance to climb on our heads. I have to put our camaraderie first, or else I’m no different from the people I want to replace.”
“And yet, you called today the start of your reign,” Sheffa said. “Being a princess seems at odds with what you’re saying now.”
Adah watched the other magic users converse a short distance away from herself and Sheffa. Everyone had joined in at this point, with Iris laying on her theatrics as heavy as ever and the various members of the jovial faction making fun of her each step of the way. Of course, that only enraged Iris further. Some of the more level-headed ones like Rika, Ekki, and Seliah tried to take a diplomatic angle and get both sides to take it easy on the other. They found little success.
Everyone was raising their voices, and Iris looked like she was about to pull her hair out, but it wouldn’t be accurate to say they were fighting. As far as Adah could tell, they were all getting along. Their exchange had none of the untempered vitriol that her own relationship with Iris used to have. Even Iris, as exasperated as she was, might have been having fun.
“Not at all,” Adah said to Sheffa. “It’s simply what my reign will look like.”