For the tenth time since the fight began, Celestrina found herself weighing the mission against the reckless girl fighting beside her. She had a sworn duty to protect the innocent, a universal imperative. But when her adversary was also her oldest friend, where did the boundaries of right and wrong even lie?
Near the cliffs, a flower garden shone its full bloom, roses and lilacs swaying with the breeze from the ocean. Waves gently overlap with the clear-white sand at the bottom. A bamboo hut stood at the cliff's top, overlooking the sunrise at the horizon.
Peaceful, it is... until the trees oscillated chaotically from a magnitude five earthquake, the ground partly cracking. A giant octopus emerged from the waters, its tentacles oversized the hut that it squashed in one pound. Its roar formed a shockwave that emitted a deafening frequency through the entire forest.
One of its eyes gazed down at the two people standing on the edge of the cliff, both wearing vivid clothing, each in hues of green and blue. The blue one held an ancient bow made of carved Cervianium, a scarce wood as durable as Orichalcum. The other summoned a crystalline hammer with a hook-like shape on its edge.
Celestrina aimed her bow at the eyes of the enemy, pulling the string back with supreme force.
After releasing her grip, the spinning arrow flew in a bent trajectory, like it followed a hidden orbit through the octopus's eye. Soon, the arrow self-destructed, forming a green explosion accompanied by a deafening screech. The ground shuddered, and a low roar pulsed through the rock, a physical bass note so deep it seemed to tear at the air itself. The enemy stood still, its eyes regenerating for every second.
Celestrina's lips pressed into a thin line. She and Mirielle flinched back as the smoke cleared, revealing the gash in the creature's eye already knitting itself shut. An attack that should have leveled a building had done nothing more than annoy it.
"Celestrina, keeping her cool, clacked her tongue. "That's spectacularly insulting. Mirielle, will your hammer be able to pierce through its body? It might have a hidden core that keeps that monster regenerating.
"I-I can, but... we need to find the core first."
Technically, none of us has X-ray vision. We need to shred its skin first and find the glow of its core. What's keeping Stellara so late?
"So late? Who?" A voice behind them made their head turn back. Appearing in an aesthetically flexible pink magic suit, Stellara landed down the ground from above, standing, holding her staff. Grinning, she commented, "I've seen its eyes explode. What happened?"
Look at that smug expression," Celestrina uttered, her eyes narrowing. Stellara let the silence stretch just long enough. "Where did you go? We need you to peel its skin."
"I'm not your peeler, Celeste. But I can shred it more than skin it."
After a long sigh, Celestrina bowed her head. "Just do something helpful."
Smirking, she spun her staff and prepared her stance. "Then... Mirielle, ready your hammer."
"I'm ready, Stellara!"
With her wand, she traced the monster's outline from afar like a painter dancing with her wide strokes. Her wand glowed yellow, and at the same time, the monster's skin radiated from the inside.
"Angelo perforatore!" Celestrina hovered her palm over her slanted bow and chanted a prayer to summon hundreds of magic arrows floating and spaced equally in the air.
Mirielle stepped at the very edge of the cliff and pulled her hammer, reserving her energy for a full force hit. Stellara pointed the endpiece of her staff at the monster's eye while holding its lower grip part. Stellara grinned, blinked on her left eye, and whispered,
"Botto scintillante!" Her staff recoiled back, like a 40 caliber sniper rifle. In an instant, all of the monster's skin detonated, like it was showered with acid.
"Colpo pesante!" That split second gave Mirielle the opportunity to smash her hammer forward, hitting an invisible wall. At the same time of the hit, all of the arrows' nock was swiftly pushed by a magical circle. These arrows pierced all of the monster's possible hidden spots like rain and thunder.
The monster let out its enormous roar again, but this time, it was accompanied by a loud cracking of glass. It appeared that there was only a minimal crack that was made through the core since the monster is still moving, but due to the reverberations, Mirielle located the exact location of the monster's core. That same spot glowed blue, an ability Mirielle had to mark targets.
"Nice job, Mirielle! Let's try again, but with accuracy!" Stellara called out, spinning her wand and dancing as a magic circle formed before her.
"Colpo Finale!" With a swift swipe of Stellara's arm to the right, she pierced a hole onto the monster's stomach in a blink, leaving only the glass core floating in the air. "I will be the star of the afternoon!" Shouting, Stellara ran and jumped off the cliff and straight to the core, holding her staff like a hammer.
"You're messing this up, clout!" Celestrina shouted, her nerves popping out her forehead.
"No worries! The mysterious magic girl will be the hero again-" Time seemed to stop mid-air. Her triumphant grin froze as her clothes reverted to her school uniform, the magic draining away in an instant. Her eyes widened, not at some distant vision, but at the massive shadow sweeping toward her. This sucks, she thought.
A huge tentacle's swipe hit Stellara flying across and down the ocean. The water ate her, and her weight pulled her down. The other magic girls bulged their eyes from the scene.
"STELLARA!" Mirielle cried, rushing and diving off the cliff.
"Unnecessarily stupid, Celestrina thought, gritting her teeth. She noticed that the monster's stomach rapidly regenerated, covering the hole and hiding the core.
"If she'd hit the cliff face, she'd be dead. Celestrina forced the thought away. She had to focus. In three seconds, the opening would be gone forever." Before Stellara jumped off the cliff, Celestrina already pulled her bow, preparing to pierce the monster's core.
One second, she aimed. Due to its rapid regeneration, she needs to calculate the exact point where the hole still shows the core. If she hits flesh, the core won't break.
"Fuoco di Cupido!" Two seconds later, she released the arrow, a grin of pure, unshakeable confidence on her face. The arrow shrank thinner like a needle, travelling in a bent trajectory and glowing dazzlingly bright. The light around it bent, a product of maximum thermal emission, and a touch of it could cause third-degree burns.
Before it reached three seconds, the sounds of shattered glass echoed beyond the horizon. The arrow pierced the 5-millimeter opening, hitting a bullseye. A deafening scream of agony echoed and then died, the creature dissolving into a cloud of crimson dust that scattered on the wind.
"Oh, thank God! It hit!" Celestrina uttered, her bow slipping from fingers that had forgotten how to close as she knelt on the ground, catching her breath. That one shot exhausted all her stamina in her body, and if she missed, she would depend on her teammates to defeat the monster.
Mirielle scrambled over the edge, hauling a drenched and limp Stellara onto the rock. She laid her flat, hands hovering over her chest to start compressions, but stopped as Stellara gave a ragged cough, spewing a lungful of seawater.
"Mirielle gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. "What timing! Are you alright?" She assisted the coughing Stelara to sit straight.
After regaining her composure, Stellara stood up and transformed back to her magic girl form. She narrowed her eyes towards Celestrina and asked, "Did you just call me unnecessary and stupid?"
Celestrina stood up, holding her chin high. "Your hearing is perfect, your memory isn't. A mere Colpo Finale can flatten the core, but you didn't. Talk about being flashy.
"Flashy this and that, but you only sighed and prayed to cupid that your shot hits! And I thought that all citizens had been evacuated. Heck, you should've considered that tribes don't respond to modern text alerts! I nearly died!"
"S-Stop fighting! There's no point for us to oppose ourselves. We're allies," Mirielle mediated between the two, her legs trembling.
Even with Mirielle's open palm pointing at them, Celestrina continued, "Don't stop me, Mirielle. This nuthead should crack her skull open and realize we're only concerned with her safety. These arguments wouldn't have happened if she just did her job-"
I did my job!" Stellara screamed, her voice cracking as she undid her transformation. Her bravado crumbled, and tears welled in her eyes as she pressed a fist to her heart. "It was my way... my only way! Don't you get it? It doesn't matter how hard I fight. No one even knows I'm here. If I died just now... who would have even noticed?
"What's even my point if I'm non-existent?"
***
The press room was a storm of shutter clicks and shouted questions. Microphones jabbed toward them from every direction.
"—true you're a three-man team?"
"—who was the other one?"
"—shut down the broadcast because of her?"
"When will we see the third girl? Is she invisible?"
The noise hammered at them, each question a new accusation.
On the right podium, Mirielle curled her shoulders, her clasping shaky hands hidden from the public. Her green outfit might have sparked elegance, complementing her short ash brown hair, but it shouted experience from multiple battles of life and death. Behind it, she had difficulty breathing due to the current circumstance, unable to express her thoughts.
The girl in the middle podium, Celestrina, tapped her shoulder and smiled, bowing a slight nod that it was alright. She wore the same outfit as her, but in a shade of sky blue, complementing her dark blue hair. With shoulders back and chin high, she pointed the podium microphone near her mouth and spoke with a firm voice.
"Mic test... Celestrina speaking. I'm about to give you the answers you want. In return, I expect your silence. No interruptions."
One of the press asked in the middle of the sudden silence. "Then... Will you tell us more about the third magic girl?"
You see this?" Celestrina gestured to the lingering wisps of void energy. "You see power that can shatter warships. You don't see the price. The universe has rules, and for some, the price of this power is to remain unseen. For Stellara, a single lingering glance from the public is enough to strip her magic away.
"But how will you prove it? The citizens couldn't even see her contribution in fighting against the Void Order!"
Confirming she exists is the only help I can offer, and it's nothing compared to her contribution," Celestrina said, gazing at the lingering magic dust. "She wants to be a public heroine more than anything. But the ancient pacts that grant our powers have their own demands. When she can be revealed is not up to us.
"I could only hope I'll be able to witness this curse vanishing."