Chapter Text
Fall had come in at last, and the heat and humid stickiness of summer had faded along with the last rattling cries of the few surviving cicadas. The late afternoon sun was bright and Mami Tomoe hummed a cheery tune as she steered her bright yellow moped through the streets, her equally golden curly pigtails poking out beneath a color-coordinated helmet and streaming in the wind. Behind her, her boyfriend Toushirou Hitsugaya sat riding pillion, holding on for dear life as they zigzagged in and out of traffic.
To ordinary eyes, there was nothing special about two teenagers out on a date after school, but in this case, appearances were deceiving. She was the magical girl protector of Mitakihara City; he was the Tenth Division shinigami captain overseeing the general region; and though Mami, at least, was enjoying the ride, it was business, not pleasure, that had brought them today to the neighboring city of Kamihama.
Company on her work was a recent development, one she still wasn't fully used to after two years patrolling the greater Mitakihara metropolitan area on her own. Now she had a whole team of magical girls, as well as Toushirou and his entire division of shinigami as backup, which meant she no longer needed to patrol unless she wanted to. But even if she hadn't been dedicated to her work, Mami would never pass up an opportunity to spend time with Toushirou, especially outside of the paper-thin walls of the Urahara Candy Store where anything approaching privacy was impossible without specialized kido and/or outright bribery.
Not long ago, their joint area of responsibility had been known as the Mitakihara Special Exclusionary Zone—essentially, a game reserve rogue shinigami Mayuri Kurotsuchi had set aside for the alien Incubator to hunt magical girls without outside interference. Now that Kurotsuchi was dead to his colleagues, reduced to a soul gem in a heavily sealed jar in Mr. Urahara's laboratory, the area was now formally under Toushirou's more benign stewardship. The fact that he and Mami were an item had played into both the assignment and his acceptance of it, but Mami was grateful nonetheless.
Unlike Mitakihara City, which was relatively small and self-contained, Kamihama encompassed nine different wards, each one of which was practically a city in itself. Today's expedition was to the Hokuyou Ward in the northwestern portion of Kamihama bordering Mitakihara, home to the city's wealthiest residents as well as all the luxury shops that catered to them.
As a result, all of the municipal infrastructure had adopted an old-fashioned European aesthtic, complete with cobblestone streets. This might have worked for larger vehicles, but it was a jarring, bumpy ride on a moped, and Mami was forced to quickly pull off and park lest she damage her tires. There weren't any signs expressly forbidding parking on the spotless sidewalk, but she decided to play it safe and use a bit of magic to shield the moped from ordinary eyes, just in case.
Once it was locked and safely hidden, she and Toushirou set out on foot towards their destination: the neighborhood surrounding St. Liliana's Academy for Girls, one of the premiere private schools in the region—and with half a dozen magical girls in its student body, many of which Mami knew from her time at the Urahara Candy Store. Their mission today wasn't to fight monsters, it was to promote the magical girl-shinigami partnership that been working so well in Mitakihara.
After weeks of preparation, during which Mami had personally spoken to as many magical girls who patronized the shop as possible, the Tenth Division had finally started patrolling in Kamihama and the other cities within the Special Exclusionary Zone. Both Mami and Toushirou planned to be on the ground as much as possible during the initial rollout, and given its location, Hokuyo Ward was a natural starting point.
In spite of their best attempts to get the word out, not every magical girl came to the Urahara Candy Store in person. Since there was no upper limit on the number of purchases, some girls came once or twice and stocked up accordingly; others made a brisk business in selling their surplus to girls unwilling or unable to make the trek themselves. For all of Mami's attempts at solidarity, many magical girls were loners who preferred to work independently, and there was no good way to reach them except in person—nor any guarantee they would take any news that reached them seriously until the shinigami turned up on their turf.
Furthermore, no matter how much Toushirou emphasized to his subordinates that magical girls were not to be taken lightly, the majority of shinigami had no experience with them in the field, and thus little knowledge of what to expect. Mami and her friends had done their best to prepare them, but every new magical girl was a wild card, and inevitably, there were going to be problems as the two groups adjusted to each other's presence. Still, Mami was confident that they would overcome any difficulties with time and effort, just as they had in Mitakihara.
The stakes were high, and her goals were ambitious, but on a beautiful day like this one, lasting peace and harmony between magical girls and shinigami didn't seem so far away.
Stop, Nee-san, you'll jinx it, Castrovalva said petulantly inside her head. Although a powerful force in her own right, the reformed Crossroads Witch now took the form of Mami's younger self—and behaved like it, too.
Don't be silly, Mami said. That's just superstition.
As if determined to prove her wrong, a high-pitched keening wail echoed from up ahead—the all too familiar sound of a soul in mortal peril.
See, what did I tell you? You had to go and ruin everything.
It's not my fault! Mami protested, but good luck trying to convince Castrovalva when she'd already made up her mind, and there was no time for recriminations now.
Unburdened by inner voices, Toushirou had a head start; she only caught up when he paused in front of an alleyway to pull out what looked like a Pez dispenser from his shirt pocket and pop a round little glass ball into his mouth. Mami averted her eyes; the resemblance between soul candy and soul gems always made her nauseous.
I don't know why you're so squeamish, souls are delicious, Castrovalva said, her white teeth bared in a feral grin. Not that I'd know, of course.
With a loud pop, there were abruptly two different Toushirous on the sidewalk; if she hadn't seen it before, Mami would have gasped. One was his gigai, or artificial body, now piloted by a mod soul, or artificial personality dubbed "King" in the official marketing. The other was his spirit form—the true Toushirou—in the black shihakusho and billowing white haori that marked him as a captain of the Thirteen Court Guardian Divisions. Strapped to his back was his zanpakutou Hyourinmaru, almost as tall as he was even in sealed form.
"Hide yourself somewhere safe," the spirit Toushirou ordered the gigai, pointing down the alleyway.
"Hide myself somewhere safe!" King repeated, and ran off to obey orders.
"Is he, uh, always like that?" Mami said. "It's kind of embarrassing."
Toushirou sighed and shook his head. "I keep asking Urahara for a better model and he just laughs at me. "
Yeah, that sounded like Mr. Urahara, all right. "Maybe I can sweet-talk him into something better. A custom build, perhaps?"
"If anyone can manage that, it'd be you. Come on, let's go."
There were times for a lengthy and involved transformation into her magical girl form, but this wasn't one of them. Within seconds, Mami was in her costume and ready to fight—though even now, she dared to hope it wouldn't come to it.
They rounded the corner to find a young girl in her early teens facing off against five men in black shihakusho and old-fashioned straw sandals in a tiny park sandwiched between shops. Despite these lopsided odds, the girl was the clear winner, having backed her opponents into a corner, and was now lecturing them sternly while waving a heart-shaped wand. It would have been funny if the situation weren't so serious.
The girl's long blonde hair—the tips of which had been daringly dyed pink—was bound up into two haughty pigtails and framed with hair clips that rose up like angel wings with pink hearts on them. Her soul gem—also pink and heart-shaped—was on a black bow at her throat, beneath which she wore a black and white corset laced with pink ribbons, a tiered black and white skirt with ruffles capped with a massive pink bow and trailing ribbon, and black stockings and black boots.
It was utterly unsuitable for combat, and yet she had five grown men cowering from her in abject terror—correctly so, in Mami's opinion. Her cute outfit and chubby face belied the murder in her piercing blue eyes. This was a girl who had no compunctions about killing if she had to.
Something about the girl was familiar, and yet Mami would have sworn they'd never met before; if they had, she couldn't remember her name. This was not the most auspicious way to introduce herself, but there was no help for it now.
"What is the meaning of this? Explain yourselves, all of you!" Mami demanded with all the authority she could muster.
Annoyed at the interruption, the girl glowered at the interlopers. "Why should I? Who are you?"
"Captain!" one of the shinigami sighed with relief. "Thank goodness you're here!"
Toushirou drew himself up to his full height, but the effect was ruined because the other magical girl was still taller than he was.
"I'm Tenth Division Captain Toushirou Hitsugaya," he said, with all the dignity he could muster.
"Really? Why are you so short then?"
A muscle his cheek clenched. "That's not important here. Who are you and why are you harassing my men?"
"Are you blind?! These guys were the ones harassing Hoto-rin!"
Mami blinked. Cowering behind the first girl was a second one neither she nor Toushirou had noticed until now. Not only did Mami recognize this one, she now understood why the first girl looked so familiar.
Hotori Yuzuki was thirteen years old and a seventh grader at St. Liliana's, but she was also a magical girl and the blonde and blue-eyed mirror of her twin. In every other respect, however, they were complete and total opposites.
Where her sister's costume was frilly and feminine, Hotori's would have fit right in on one of her beloved tokusatsu shows: a red and white spandex jumpsuit with a matching half-skirt, a thick ornate belt capped with a star-shaped soul gem and thigh-length red boots. Her close-cropped hair was completely unadorned; a long whit scarf and a pink lens over one eye completed the ensemble. Right now, she was cowering just as much as the shinigami Rion was antagonizing, although the reason remained unclear.
Hotori desperately, wanted to be a hero—and would be, Mami was certain, if she ever managed to get over her tremendous anxiety. As a regular customer at the Urahara Candy Store, Mami had spoken with Hotori enough to know that she became a magical girl because to protect her younger sister—but had never mentioned she wasn't the only magical girl in the family.
Seeing the two of them together explained a lot, actually.
"R-Rion," Hotori said, blushing to the roots of her hair. "Please—"
"We were not threatening her, captain!" the squad leader said. "We merely inquired what exactly she was doing here, and somehow it all got blown out of proportion!"
It could have gone either way, Mami thought, carefully assessing their body language. Hotori was nervous enough—and Rion overprotective enough—to see a threat when there wasn't one, but it was equally possible the shinigami had been less than professional and reaped the consequences. She opened her mouth, prepared to negotiate a truce, when—
"Mami-sama! It's so~ good to see you!"
It took all of Mami's self control to keep her smile from slipping as Yuuna Kaharu strode onto the scene like monarch making a grand entrance.
Here was a magical girl who not only carried herself like a queen, but whose portrait would not be out of place besides those of European royalty in the Mitakihara Museum of Art. The massive golden crown balanced on her head could have only stayed upright by magic; the equally golden dress framed by an elegant capelet trimmed with white fur must have weighed just as much. She carried a scepter big enough to serve as a club, and her long white hair was neatly bound in tight French braids bound with a globus cruciger that could serve as impromptu weapons themselves.
Even more than Rion, this girl radiated the supreme confidence of someone who'd never been denied anything in her entire life. From anyone else, it would have been ostentatious to the point of ridicule. Somehow Yuuna Kaharu managed to pull it off through the sheer force of her own belief.
"Oh, er, hello, Kaharu," Mami managed, internally cringing inside as Yuuna directed a thousand-watt smile her way.
"This is your precious Mami-sama that you're always talking about?" Rion said. "If she's so great, why is she fraternizing with the enemy?"
"The shinigami are not our enemies," Mami cut in quickly. "They're friends and allies of all magical girls."
"They're not my friends," Rion said. "They're the reason witches are so hard to find these days!"
"Nonsense," Mami said firmly. "The shinigami have nothing to do with witches."
"D'you think we're stupid? Witches started disappearing right about the time that shady guy with all the grief seeds turned up in Mitakihara! Now there are goons in black robes everywhere cutting us out of our own territory so they can completely control the supply!"
"That's not—"
"And nobody's seen Kyubey since then, either—how do we know they didn't kill him, too?"
"We're getting distracted," Toushirou said, mercifully cutting the conversation short. He turned to his men. "You lot, you're relieved from duty for now. Go back to Soul Society and make your reports; I'll wrap up here."
"...Sir?"
"I gave you an order, Wakari!" Toushirou barked.
"Sir! Yes, sir! Thank you, captain!"
"There," Hitsugaya said, once the men had vanished into a senkaimon. "I apologize for the misunderstanding. We're here in Kamihama to patrol for spiritual anomalies, not start arguments."
"I suppose you think we should be grateful," Rion said. "Well, guess what: this is our territory, thank you very much, and we've gotten along just fine without you! And you—" she spat, waving her wand at Mami. "You're a magical girl who's supposed to be the defender of truth and justice, so why are you getting all lovey-dovey with the enemy, you big hypocrite?!"
"Hey, now, Rion, that's too harsh, don't you think?" Yuuna said. "I think it's very noble of Mami-sama to advocate for peace and salvation to all, even the shinigami. But that's Mami-sama, for you—always believing the best in everyone!"
Mami ought to be relieved that another magical girl was standing up for her, but somehow Yuuna's defense was worse than any of Rion's accusations.
Rion Yuzuki rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say, Setokaichou."
Student council president, huh? Somehow Mami wasn't surprised. Give her a few years, and Yuuna would probably be running the world.
"Come on, Hoto-rin," Rion continued, yanking at her sister's arm. "We're done here."
"Oww, Rion, that hurts! Slow down, I'm coming, I'm coming..."
Even Hotori's manner of speaking was the opposite of her sister's, right down to her choice of pronouns, as if she were desperately trying to assert her individuality with every syllable.
"Ah! I almost forgot!" Rion said. "Are you hurt at all? Is your soul gem okay? Do you need a grief seed?"
"It's fine, Rion. We can wait until tomorrow to see the Coord—ow!" she gasped, as Rion dragged her away.
"See the what?" Mami said.
"None of your business," Rion said. "What do you care, anyway? Just because you control who gets grief seeds now doesn't mean you get to jerk the rest of us around!"
This was a low blow, and patently untrue—Mami had never used her position to horde grief seeds for herself or withhold them from others—and she bristled at the accusation.
"Oh, dear," Yuuna said, shifting from foot to foot in discomfort. "Please forgive her rudeness, Mami-sama. As you can see, she's a little overwrought right now."
"I am not!" Rion snapped. She turned back to Mami. "Go back to Mitakihara where you belong, sell-out! You have your own territory—you don't need ours!"
Mami bit back a harsh retort as the Yuzuki twins departed, even though it galled her to let Rion have the last word. Torn between continuing the conversation and attending to her friends, Yuuna finally chose the latter, shooting apologetic glances over her shoulder at Mami as she went.
"Well," Toushirou said when the two of them were finally alone. "That could have gone better."
"Hotori Yuzuki became a magical girl because she wanted to be strong enough to protect her younger sister... but somehow I never imagined her sister would be like that," Mami said.
Toushirou, who was no stranger to sibling drama, merely shrugged. "Sometimes it's like that."
Hmmph, Castrovalva sniffed. Sometimes I'm glad we were an only child.
They retraced their steps to the alleyway, to find King holed up inside a dumpster—"safe" from everything except the leftover takeout boxes and used tissues in which he'd built a cozy nest.
"Remind me to be more specific in my instructions next time," Toushirou said dryly once back in corporeal form, brushing a candy wrapper out of his hair. "Still, I'm glad we broke up that fight before it escalated any further. The last thing we need are injuries on either side—or worse, more paperwork."
Mami chuckled nervously, but it wasn't a joke. Most of a captain's job was paperwork and Toushirou's second in command, Lieutenant Matsumoto, was notorious for slacking off on the day-to-day business of running the division, leaving the bulk of the work to him.
"I'll remind my people to be more careful in the future, because you and I can't be everywhere at once, and I don't want to have to explain any unfortunate incidents to the Captain-Commander," Toushirou continued.
In a timeline that no longer existed, Soul Society's military government had had a nasty habit of exterminating anyone and anything they considered a threat. Even if those deaths had been undone to the point where Mami was one of the few who remembered they had ever happened in the first place, Captain-Commander Yamamoto was to be avoided at all costs. It was one reason why she'd campaigned so hard for magical girls in Soul Society over the summer—and why she'd invested so much effort in this collaboration with the Tenth Division.
"It's so frustrating," Mami sighed. "I thought that magical girls would stop fighting each other if there were enough grief seeds to go around, but I didn't expect them to blame the shinigami for it. Can't we all just get along?!"
"They have no reason to trust us. And without telling them where witches come from—"
Now there was an idea. Thus far, Mami had kept that information limited to her own circle, but was that really the right thing to do?
"We could," Mami said slowly. "I mean, I could. If they saw Castrovalva, than maybe—"
Toushirou shook his head. "And what if it backfires and they turn on you? Or worse?"
In another timeline that didn't exist anymore, Mami had done just that, lashing out at her own beloved friends in order to "save" them. In this one, even the knowledge her soul gem was literally her soul—that Kyubey had ripped it from her body as part of her contract—had been enough to tip Mami over the edge into becoming a witch herself. And even though it was possible to come back from that, Mami wouldn't wish that experience on anymore—not to mention there were dozens of genuine grief seeds languishing in Mr. Urahara's workshop that they'd been unable to restore to normal yet. Did she really want to take the risk?
"So," Toushirou said after a lengthy pause. "What was it about that third girl—Kaharu, right?—that made you so upset?"
"You could tell?"
"Trust me, I know when something upsets you. You didn't seem to appreciate her taking your side back there. Why?"
"Oh—er—it's nothing. I saved her from a witch once, before she became a magical girl, and she has high expectations of me, that's all."
He raised an eyebrow. "That's it?"
"And... I may have shown off a little."
The eyebrow went even higher. "And?"
"And... she wished to be a magical girl just like me, someone who could kill witches and save everyone in the world. Exact words, in fact."
Toushirou let out a huff. "Wow, that is awkward."
"Exactly! Yuuna Kaharu believes that I'm a saint who can do no wrong. She's put me on a pedestal—and based her entire life around it. She doesn't see me, all she sees is a symbol of what it means to be a magical girl. And yes, it's my fault for encouraging her, and that wasn't right, but she believes I saved her, and maybe I did, but she put herself into so much danger because of me, and there's no undoing it now—"
"It wasn't your fault," Toushirou said. "You couldn't have known. And however awestruck or ill-informed she might have been when she made her wish, it was still her decision, not yours."
"It's one reason why I was nervous about coming out to Kamihama today," Mami admitted. "Now that I know the truth... it's hard for me to be around her, knowing that I ruined any chances of a normal life for her."
Toushirou grimaced. "'Admiration is the emotion furthest from understanding,'" he quoted, but she didn't recognize the reference. "In her case, it's probably harmless, but I still don't like it. I think you should talk to her. Maybe not about witches, but everything else."
"You think so?"
"Invite her to tea and try it," he said. "She likes tea, doesn't she?"
"How do you know that?"
Toushirou rolled his eyes. "She likes you, so of course she likes tea. Obviously."
Nyaahh, Castrovalva said, pulling on her lower eyelid and sticking her tongue out at Toushirou. It was a wasted effort; without taking control of Mami's body directly, there was no way he could perceive it.
"I'll think about it," Mami said. "But since you mentioned tea... we may not have had any luck convincing Rion Yuzuki that we're on the level, but there's a magical girl who runs a restaurant nearby, so we should stop in for a meal since we're already in the area. And if we're lucky, there will be other magical girls we can talk to as well..."
Sure enough, Mami's plan worked, and they found half a dozen magical girls in attendance, two of whom she'd never met before and who had no idea that shinigami even existed. The rest of the afternoon passed in a pleasant rush of food, laughter, and conversation, and by the the time she and Toushirou departed for Mitakihara a few hours later, Mami was confident that they had won them over, at least enough to keep them from picking stupid fights with any shinigami patrols they encountered.
But it wasn't until she was back in her room at the Urahara Candy Store and recording the day's events in her journal that Mami realized that there was something she'd forgotten to ask about.
What's that 'Coord' thing the Yuzuki twins mentioned? she said to Castrovalva. There isn't any way a magical girl can clean her soul gem without grief seeds, is there?
I mean, *we* don't need them anymore and neither do Nagisa and Homura. So it can be done. But that's not what they meant.
Because it's not something Hotori or Rion can do themselves, Mami agreed. It sounded like a place. Or a person. Something only magical girls would know about. But if so, why have I never heard of it before?
She made a note in her journal to ask Mr. Urahara about it, then, after a moment's hesitation, added "Tea with Yuuna Kaharu???" underneath and surrounded it with stars for emphasis.
As much as she dreaded such a conversation, Toushirou was right. Intentionally or not, Mami was the one who had gotten Yuuna into this mess, and thus Mami owed it to her to finally set the record straight once and for all. Yuuna meant well, but she was too caught up in her grand ideals about what magical girls ought to be like—delusions inadvertently fostered by Mami herself—to see clearly, especially thinking through the consequences of her actions was not one of Yuuna's strengths.
Thus decided, Mami summoned a ribbon, scribbled a quick note, and folded it into a messenger moth that fluttered out the window to its intended recipient before she could lose her nerve. She might not be the perfect magical girl that Yuuna thought she was, but she was a magical girl nonetheless, one who would do the right thing, even if it was difficult.