Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

You lean back in your chair, mirroring Yuki's posture as you think. A defense pact... well, it's eminently desirable, especially after you tell her that you're facing Walpurgisnacht, and she's still interested in committing to it. Homura would be thrilled - she'd named the Fukushima girls as being helpful.

Of course, the thought that follows on is wondering why she might want a defense pact so very much.

And it isn't wholly your decision to make, either.

"Hey, everyone?" You link in Mami, Homura, and Sayaka for a telepathic conversation. "Sorry to interrupt, but something's come up that everyone ought to have a say in."

"Mmm?" Mami's the first to respond, warm and interested. As Sayaka and Homura chime in, you turn your attention to Yuki.

"I'm willing to spar, but-" you raise a hasty hand, alarmed that the 'location of her choosing' might be here and now. "Rules?"

"Not here, if that's what you were thinking," Yuki says with an amused glint in her eyes. "This is where we live, after all, even if this is where I'm the most powerful. One of my satellite bases that we use as a sparring ground."

"Hmm," you say, frowning at her. "I assume your friends told you what I did in Sendai."

Your mind's busy as you speak, considering the situation and speaking to your friends.

"So... Tsuruya Yuki from the Fukushima group is offering a mutual defense agreement," you say. "It affects all of us, and yes, I'll be getting more information, but you all should be in the know."

A satellite base certainly doesn't do wonders to inspire confidence in her lack of enemies. Having a satellite base suggests a need to control a swathe of territory - a strongpoint to fall back to, to provide support from, to sally forth from.

"Walpurgisnacht?" Homura asks.

"They did," Yuki agrees. "You're free to use any tactics you feel necessary, barring smashing my Gem."

"No, I'm not," you say. "There are degrees to which I'm not willing to escalate to, so we need to lay down rules."

"I told them about Walpurgisnacht," you inform your friends. "She's still interested."

"Seems... shady," Sayaka says. "I mean, what are they expecting, that they're willing to throw down with a city destroying Witch to get our help?"

"They're a mercenary group," Mami explains. "They must have enemies."

"Precisely my thoughts," you say. "Which is why I'm putting it to everyone, whether we should go for it or not? Also, uh, she wants to spar with me, and I'm inclined to take her up on that at least."

"That's reasonable," Yuki allows, making a motion to the side. "Do not worry about harming me, or the location we'll be fighting in, and don't worry about exposing magic - I contracted an illusionist to conceal it before, since my team uses it for training. I can rebuild it, and I will commission Miss Mori to be on standby."

"Take care, Sabrina," Mami says. "She's dangerous."

"Kick her ass!" Sayaka says. "I'm gonna be disappointed with you if you don't!"

"Which means I'll be limiting for collateral. I assume it's not so remote as to have no one around it?" you say. "I'd ask the same of you."

"I'll be careful, Mami," you tell your friends. "I promise. And I'll do my best."

"Done. It's an abandoned shopping center on the outskirts of the city, with few people around," Yuki says. "Are you conferring with your friends about my offer?"

"Yeah," you say. "I didn't come here expecting an offer of a defense pact, and I can't rightly agree to it myself. I have questions, of course, and I think my friends would like to meet you for discussions before we can agree to anything."

"I wouldn't expect anything less," Yuki says, nodding. "And again - an opportunity to visit Mitakihara is something I won't turn down."

Really, how else are you supposed to take a statement like that as something other than her being a fan of Mami?

"I'll try my best," you tell your friends. "Still, thoughts about the defense pact?"

"I think we need to know more," Mami says.

"Agreed!" Sayaka says.

"I've suggested that we should all meet her face to face before we can come to a decision," you say. "But yeah, I'll be asking her."

"Their support would be good for Walpurgisnacht," Homura murmurs.

"You're sure you're OK with... dismemberment and so on?" you ask cautiously. There's a tingling sense of paranoia at the back of your mind - she's got to be packing something potent if she knows what you can do and still wants to take you on no holds barred.

"It would," Mami agrees with a sigh. "We know what they bring to the table in terms of their abilities, but we don't know what enemies they bring to the table. An agreement would hinge on that."

"Yes," Yuki says. "Shall we move to the sparring location?"

"Sure," you say. "In the meantime, I have some questions."

"I'll find out," you tell Mami.

"There will be no meantime, if you are amenable," Yuki says with a faint smile. "I can bring us there."

"Hold on," you say, slicing your hand through the air. "No surprises, please. Do you have some form of teleport?"

"Between locations I have secured, yes," Yuki says, eyes curious and searching. "Should we make a defense agreement, with your permission, I'd establish a lesser nexus in Mitakihara."

"That's... interesting," you allow. "I'd have to get back to you on that. But allow me to secure my... well, do you remember that I described the creation of Clear Seeds as the removal of Grief from a Grief Seed, right? I typically hang on to that Grief."

"So that's what that is," Yuki says, eyes lighting up. "I see. You'll need to secure it for teleport?"

"Yeah," you say. "Fair warning, Miss Tachibana was strained pretty hard by teleporting it."

"I see," Yuki says, glancing up - and you can feel the entire building shudder, a circular shaft opening all the way up to the rooftop where you'd parked your Grief.

"I was going to just bring it down by the stairwell," you note, Grief cascading down the shaft in a seemingly endless torrent of purple, fractal spheres. You start coalescing it all, swirling into another solid monolith.

"This is more direct," Yuki says with an ambivalent shrug.

"True!" you say with a grin. "So, this'll just take a moment, but in the meantime, a question. Why?"

"Why do we want a defense pact?" Yuki asks, rising to her feet. "What enemies do we face that we are willing to face Walpurgisnacht for a defense pact?"

"That, yes," you admit, raising your eyebrows as she folds her arms behind her back and starts to pace, dodging around your forming Grief monolith.

"We have enemies, of course," Yuki says. "It's all but inevitable, in our position. Few of them are foolhardy enough to attempt to mount an attack on us, and fewer still have the means to do so. We've repelled attacks before, and I don't forsee any issues if the status quo remains."

Green eyes cut to you, cool, calculating analysis behind them. "I don't anticipate the status quo remaining," she says. "I assume you will base yourself out of Mitakihara, and I assume that you nevertheless intend to extend your reach internationally. Whether you succeed or not, Mitakihara is going to become the fulcrum on which this turns."

"That's fair," you say. "So you want to... hitch your star to mine?"

"I will be honest: no," Yuki says. "But you wanted to know what enemies I anticipate facing? You, and others. I do not want to wind up on the opposite side of a conflict to you. Neither do I want to become collateral - there are currently no actors with an international reach targeting you, but that will only change."

"You don't have to make a defense pact with us for that," you point out. Homura would probably be annoyed with you trying to dissuade Yuki, but you feel like you have to be honest. "I'm not going to fight you unless you do something egregious."

"I need to be sure," Yuki says, blowing out a sharp breath. "For myself, and for my friends. Miss Sabrina, I don't know if you realise it, but your actions and your very existence means we'll have plenty of work to do in the days to come. Whether you succeed or fail, and even with Walpurgisnacht against you."

"I... see," you say, blinking.

"In the most concrete sense, sources tell me that the Iowa group was last sighted in India, barely a month ago. If they should make their way here..." Yuki sketches a diagonal line through the air, as if drawing a path between India and Japan. "We are in the line of fire. They would be merely the first."

"I have been considering this for a while," she says, catching your eye and smirking. "I'm telling you all this because you are the beneficiary and opponent to my plans, and I understand you are new. I doubt that Tomoe Mami is used to thinking in such political terms, and I think that you knowing this benefits everyone even if you should turn me down."

"That's... fair, and comprehensive," you say. You gesture at your Grief block, dominating the room like the ominous monolith of congealed despair it is. Probably a good thing Yuki made a shaft, in retrospect - you needed the extra room. "Uh, I'm done, by the way."

"Excellent," Yuki says, nodding. "Which brings me to my last point - I want to gauge your abilities, personally. If we're going to fight Walpurgisnacht personally, I want to know that you can pull your weight."

"Right," you say, and grin. "Though you know, I'm arguably not the strongest among my friends?"

Yuki squints at you, pursing her lips.

You take the decidedly awkward pause to relay what she told you about her reasoning to your friends.

"I guess I kinda buy it," Sayaka says. "You are kind of a troublemaker, Sabrina."

"I resemble that remark," you say. "Mami? Homura? What do you think?"

"I think we could agree with it," Mami says. "I think it would be good to meet her face to face, though."

"I don't believe you," Yuki says flatly. "I could credit Miss Tomoe winning in a fight between you, but I don't believe she has any less raw strength than you might... though that is what we will be ascertaining, right? Brace yourself."

You feel the flare of magic reaching up around you as you lay your hand against your Grief monolith, all but a tiny sliver you leave free floating, just to check. The floor yawns away beneath you without moving, magic surging and engulfing you in a discordant jolt-

-and you find yourself elsewhere. Yuki still stands in front of you, an empty, dusty atrium stretching out before you instead. It's an abandoned shopping center, as promised, dilapidated shop facades lining the building. You can feel the brilliant fire of magic curling through the floor and ceilings and walls alike.

And your Grief... all accounted for, monolithic block, free hanging speck, and marbles in your bag alike.

"Hey, girls, it's the spar now - I'll be careful, I promise!" you say as you take in the new location. "So I gotta drop for now, OK? Keep discussing, I'll catch up when I'm done!"

"All the best, Sabrina," Mami says.

"Kick her ass!" Sayaka says.

And Homura murmurs just as you disconnect, "Win."

Well, if you weren't going to try before...

"I'd like to invite my friends to watch," Yuki says, looking up at you. "If you're amenable. And I've contacted Miss Mori, so she should be here soon."

Right on cue, you feel two presences blink into existence, snapping into place like a rubber band released. Sakura and Rin, you presume - they're outside the building, hunkered down.

"Should be charging for tickets," you say with an amused snort. "If I'd known, I'd have brought my friends along too, but they're in school. But sure, by all means."

"Excellent," Yuki says, rubbing her hands together. You feel another two presences pop into existence in the building, noticeable against the background magic more for their sudden appearance than anything, and then move outside at a trot. Yuki gives you a wolfish grin. "We'll start on their say so?"

"Sure," you say, rolling your neck - and with the same motion, you dissolve your Grief into fog. The entire monolith sublimates, outline wavering as you tear it into countless tiny particles you hurl away from you.

Yuki throws you a two fingered salute and vanishes with barely a flicker of magic.

Huh.

The magic here isn't quite as potent as Yuki's office building, but it's bright enough that it's hard to find Yuki - but you do spot her. Her Soul Gem, an abyssal pinprick of Grief. You map the shopping center out with your mind and a billion little spheres skating along the walls.

Four stories tall, a big square shape with perimeter shopping avenues, and another two corridors that meet in the center. A cross, if viewed from above. The intersection forms a large atrium, opening to all four stories. There are fountains in the atrium, defunct, but they're there. A basement, too, with what you think used to be a food court.

You're standing on the first floor, at the tip of one of the corners, and Yuki... Yuki's on the third floor, on the corner to your right.

The speakers crackle. "Yuki, Miss Sabrina. Combat beginning on go. In three..."

A less familiar voice - Akiyama Atsuko, you think. The metal controller. Not that it matters, right now.

You take a breath, shucking your bag from your shoulders to be carried away in your Grief cloud. No need for it right now, and you'd rather have it out of the line of fire.

"Two..."

Your wings billow from your shoulders, void purple cutting swathes through the air.

"One..."

You center yourself, Grief fog curling dense around yourself and Yuki. You build armour under your coat, wrapping Grief into dense armour plates moulded to your body.

"Go!"

You crush your Grief down, snatching for Yuki's Soul Gem-

And she vanishes.

Meh. You'd kind of expected that, anywa-

Instinct screams at you, and you bound straight up. The floor punches up at you, a pillar smashing from the ground.

You meet it with Grief, a flash-formed disc meeting it with a reverberating thud but magic surges ahead of the pillar like a cresting bow wave that breaks and weaves twining strands into jaws gaping wide to gulp you down whole but you're not interested in seeing what that might do and so-

Your wings flare wide. Midnight fractal edges shear through the magic, leaving you clear to hurl yourself upwards and smashing shoulderfirst through the ceiling to the next floo-

You nearly pancake yourself against the ceiling. The building shudders under the impact, latticework of magic groaning. But it holds, and the magic flares incandescent into scorching flame you barely get your wings around in time to block. The heat scorches, painfully hot even through your wings.

You whirl, wingtip slashing through the ceiling and this time it gives in a hail of masonry. You rocket through, senses spreading wide. You need to find Yuki.

There.

But there is entirely too far, on the opposite side of the building but you're already hammering Grief blades at her but the floor ripples up to intercept her and you are under attack by the walls sprouting spikes and attempting to catch you and you deal with that by smashing through with a Grief disc hurled ahead of you.

You tumble out onto clear ground as walls crash together behind you, hurling concrete dust into the air. You pick it clean, Grief fog intercepting the dust, because even that is laden with Yuki's magic.

More blades lash at Yuki, a feint for the curl of Grief slicing around her torso. She's already gone, far too mobile within her own building. You feel the magic flaring bright around you, cables bursting through the floor to tangle and ensnare but that isn't the real attack, the threat is the electricity crackling in snarling arcs driven by magic into a blinding bolt that hurls you into the wall.

That's fine. It scored into your armour, but armour is ablative and instantly reformed. More of concern is the wall behind you, but your wings are behind you and all you have to do is ripple them to shear through brick and mortar and magic.

You let yourself fall backwards into a store, jolting upright with your wings. An old clothes shop, judging from the all-too-alive mannequins clawing at your face. Your right hand snaps out, hammer flashing through one, then two, and there's Yuki on the floor above you. A mistake to come this close to you, and you're already carving through the ceiling wing-first.

You burst through like an angel, hammer flicking out to crush a mannequin leaping at you from the floor below. A flash of purple hair, a braid fluttering after her. You hurl yourself at her, and she pops into a backward handstand to meet you with a foot to the face. You duck and sweep at her arms and freeze Grief around Soul Gem, but she's gone again, pushing off the ground to complete the flipping kick and vanishing into a wall.

The hole in the floor slams shut behind you. No exits in this room. Big room, bare of anything else.

Trap.

What kind?

Magic in the walls. Too much magi-

Behind you. You whirl, hammer rising just in time to meet a bright flash of steel. Yuki's grin is feral as she spins her weapon -nodachi, giant curved sword taller than her- away from the clash. The blade kicks out at you, far faster than it rightfully should but your Grief scissors into a manacle around her wrist and ankle and neck and Soul Gem-

And she's gone again, cloak flowing and twisting into nothingness.

Fuck that.

Distract her and break out.

Your Grief isn't following her teleports, but it's already there when she lands. She owns this building - you've got a claim on it. Your Grief fog saturates it, and right now, you have Grief blades. Every room, every nook and cranny you have Grief in is now a blender as you charge for the wall, wings wrapped tight around you.

Your blades bite home, chest and leg, but she's fast, flickering away again. Where?

Light. Blinding light, glowing from the walls. It reminds you of Prima Luce and that's not a good comparison right now. You crash through a wall, painful brilliance scorching the back of your head-

Trap. A box, grey and bright with magic pointed at your face.

Grief, Grief, Grief-

You hurl Grief in front of you, a forming barrier. Barely in time as the air shatters, noise enough to hurt and a concussive blast that hurls you into a wall hard enough to leave a crater with your body.

Armour. Gotta love it.

And your wings, because you're up again. To the atrium, to the clear space in the middle. Almost certainly a killbox, a risk you're willing to take, and right there as you punch into the open air. Water slashes at you, bursts fired from the fountains, but that's fine. You have Grief in the air, enough to disassemble each burst of water into fine spray before it hits you.

You're on the defensive. Where's Yuki?

There. A sealed room of some kind, where you didn't have Grief. Smart. Everywhere you could reach with your Grief, you filled with blades. She's there. Pinned down?

Nowhere else she can go, not now.

The escalators.

Steel and wire and magic and alive for all of that, swinging through the air like gigantic flails moving too fast for their mass. You dodge and you weave and block one with crossed wings but there's enough impact for it to hurl you back into another one that spikes you towards the ground below but you have wings and you don't have to obey the laws of motion.

You soar upwards, towards the glass roof. Steel stanchions supporting the glass swarm with crawling mannequins limned in glowing teeth of magic. Grief slashes out ahead of you, swooping blades carving through steel and plastic with whickering chimes.

An arm, an entire arm, hits you. It clings to your coat. The rest of the mannequin leaps after you and you yell wordlessly before kicking it away.

And then you're in open air, above the building. Except it isn't quite so open, because the roof seethes and buckles, steel beams breaking through concrete. Magic and electricity crackles along the beams, and you're forced to dodge crackling bolts roaring through the air.

You dive and swerve and roll through hissing, criss-crossing beams sizzling past bare centimeters from you. You juke one, noting that it dissipates harmlessly past you. Yuki's not in that room any more, darting away for the stairs. Favouring one leg, so you got a good hit in.

Grief. You'd let the blades fade away, but here she is, presenting a target. You gather the fog around her. Blades are a threat but you don't really want to hurt her too badly and so your Grief surges into tendrils snatching for her limbs and cloak and Soul Gem.

And they close on nothing. There's disorientation as your Grief isn't where it should be, passing impossibly through her.

The moment of surprise almost costs you, a bolt of white-hot flame sheathed in magic searing past your leg.

The impossible isn't.

Some kind of illusion?

No. You can sense her Soul Gem.

She's still walking on the floor. It only takes you a moment to decide, grief answering your will in an instant. A disc below, a disc above, and above.

You take a breath, and you bring the ceiling down on her.

You bring all the ceilings down. You bring it all crashing down on her, and you tear the ground out from beneath her in a single rolling pulse of will that sends a plume of dust surging throughout the building.

Yuki flails, and falls. You can feel her blade dancing, smashing aside chunks of rubble - but for the first time, it's uncontrolled. The fire reaching up for you goes wild, erratic. Uncontrolled.

You dive. You plunge through the hail of fire, and you rocket down the hole you'd carved. She senses you coming, nodachi flickering up, but that isn't the attack.

You're the distraction.

She senses the Grief gathering behind her too late, and you twist aside to let the blow slam her into the air. You pivot and kick off the lip of the hole as Grief seizes tight around her, hauling her spread-eagle and dragging her up and up and up, away from the building.

You hold her suspended in the air, and you drift up to her, wings now actually beating slowly. "Surrender?"

Yuki considers this for a moment, still bound on every limb with Grief, and nods. "I yield."

"Hoo," you say, and relax, grinning at her. "Good spar."

"Was it?" Yuki says, not struggling in her restraints at all. She sounds genuinely curious, if winded. "You had your... Grief in every part of my building. You could have brought the entire thing down from the very beginning."

"I... could have," you allow, starting to drift down towards the shopping center roof. "But no, it was a good spar. I've never fought anyone like you before."

"How would you fight?" she asks as you set her down on the roof. She rolls her neck as she makes contact, dismissing her nodachi and stretching her limbs. You can see the blood now, a clean gash carved through her thigh. Still bleeding sluggishly, for all that she shows no sign of recognising the pain. "If I were a Witch you had to take down?"

"I mean..." you say, rolling your hand. "My most effective way of taking down a Witch is Dissoluzione Bianca. I control Grief. Witches are made of Grief, so I just... tear them apart with my mind."

"Then why is Walpurgisnacht even a concern?" Yuki asks.

"It's a contest of wills," you say, letting your wings dissolve. "The stronger the Witch, the harder it is to dissolve. And Walpurgisnacht is the Queen of Witches."

"Ah," Yuki says. Her eyes slide shut for a second, and you can feel her magic surging through the shopping center. Before your very eyes, the cables and beams start to bury themselves again, holes and craters healing over.

"Hey, everyone!" you rejoin the conversation with Mami and Homura and Sayaka.

"Oh hey," Sayaka says. "Didja win?"

"I won~" you say cheerfully. "Didn't even get hurt."

Well, not really.

"That's good, Sabrina," Mami says warmly. "Miss Tsuruya has quite the reputation."

"How would you have fought, if you had to win at all costs?" Yuki asks, eyes flickering open again. "If you didn't have to care about collateral?"

"Wouldn't happen," you say firmly. "There's no circumstance where I wouldn't care about collateral."

"That's good," Homura murmurs.

"Humor me," Yuki says.

You shrug. "Vaporize the building, probably," you say. "Or uproot it in sections and toss it into orbit. And since we're asking questions, I have two, if you don't mind?"

"So what did you guys conclude?" you ask your friends.

"Er... well, we had class, so we didn't discuss that much," Sayaka says.

"We're... broadly in favour, Sabrina," Mami says. "But we do agree that we should meet Miss Tsuruya for ourselves."

"Alright. I'll let her know!" you say.

"Please," Yuki says, motioning at you. You can feel her magic at work still, healing the building.

"So... what was with that intangibility trick?" you says, holding your hand out as your bag drifts back to you, borne on Grief. You check that the contents -bagful of marbles, obrez, a bit of cash- are all still there, and nod.

"Ah. The same technique that I use for teleporting," Yuki says, nodding. "It's a trick of folding space within a zone I claim, but it's harder to use. It's the basis for the microwave room as well - I have another room full of stored sunlight."

"Stored sunlight... you mean you teleport sunshine from the roof and keep it in a room?" you ask, blinking.

"In a word, yes," Yuki says, shrugging. "Now, I require healing, so..."

"Ah, yeah," you say. "Sorry about that, by the way. Do you want a seat or something?" You gesture, forming a bench out of Grief and floating it over to her.

"No need," she says, the roof warping to form a concrete chair behind her. She sinks into it gracefully, propping her wounded leg up. "I did ask you to fight without reservation, and it's not like I wasn't trying to maim you too."

Vwwp.

"We're here," Rin announces, releasing Sakura's arm and stepping forward. "Ah, Miss Tsuruya."

The healer steps forward, already gathering magic to her hands. Sakura seems to be in a marginally better mood, glowering at you but not saying anything as Rin starts to heal Yuki's leg.

You feel another two presences bounding up the sides of the building - the other two Fukushima girls, you presume. Atsuko and Moe.

"You had another question, Miss Sabrina?" Yuki prompts you.

"Yeah... I... OK, this is probably a dumb question," you say slowly. "But given that magic is magic, I just wanna be clear. You have some kind of power to claim locations, bend them to your will, that much is clear. You also have a teammate named Shinobu, and Mount Shinobu is... right there."

You gesture towards the mountain.

Yuki stares at you for a second, and then throws her head back and laughs, bright and loud and genuine. Rin startles back, even as Sakura starts to snigger quietly.

"I wish!" Yuki gasps. "I wish I'd brought a mountain to life to be my friend."

"Look, magic is bullshit," you say. "You've got a room full of sunshine you use to fry intruders. It's not an unreasonable question!"

"I wish," Yuki says, smothering giggles. "But no. Shinobu is, as far as I know, an ordinary girl and a good friend."

"Wouldn't say she's ordinary," Moe says as she approaches. She doesn't look that different from the last time you'd seen her, albeit dressed in a simple blouse and jeans this time rather than her magical girl costume. Curly black hair held up with an elaborate hairclip casacades down one shoulder, a contrast to crimson eyes giving you a cautious once over. "But Shinobu's certainly not the spirit of a mountain, no."

"Miss Nishimura. It's good to meet you again," you say, smiling at her and turning to her companion - Akiyama Atsuko. "And you too, Miss Akiyama."

"Huh, you remembered our names," Atsuko murmurs. Black eyes regard you with equal caution. "Nice to meet you?"

"Yup, hi!" you say. You're a little uncertain, truth be told. You... don't really know how to feel about them. There's still that deep kernel of anger. They'd killed people, if by accident.

Yuki stands, testing her leg for a moment. "Thank you, Miss Mori," she says. "Stellar work, as usual. The standard payment?"

"Ah... no need," Rin says, with a glance at you. "We're covered."

"Which reminds me," you say. "Cleansing, Miss Tsuruya, Rin? And Miss Akiyama, Miss Nishimura, if you have a need?"

"I'm clean, thank you," Moe says, shaking her head.

"What the heck," Atsuko says. "Could go for it. What do you need?"

"Uh, I just need to see your Soul Gem," you say.

Rin's already presenting you hers, and Yuki carefully lifts her cloak aside to display the Soul Gem worn on a sash around her waist. You twist your hand, pulling free Grief with the motion and letting it drift into the air, a filmy banner before you dissolve it into fog.

"There," you say, smiling. "All better?"

"Thank you, Sabrina," Rin says with a smile.

"Indeed," Yuki says, inspecting her Soul Gem carefully. "Thank you, Miss Sabrina. Shall we proceed to business?"

You check the time on your phone. "Yeah, that'll be good," you agree.

"Very well," Yuki says. "I'll be bringing us all back home. Miss Sabrina, are you ready?"

"Yeah," you say. "I checked, earlier, your teleport seems to bring my Grief along no problem." Nevertheless, you draw the fog closer to yourself. You'd rather not have any of it wind up in things.

Yuki nods, closing her eyes, and the world jolts away once more. The jarring transition leaves you back in the same room you'd left, where you're going to leave Airi.

You glance at Rin, then Sakura, then Atsuko, and Moe. It's a little crowded in here with six of you.

"Will you be much longer, Miss Tsuruya, Sabrina?" Rin asks, apparently having the same thought.

"We shouldn't?" you say, glancing at Yuki.

"I concur," Yuki says.

"Then we'll wait nearby," Rin says.

"Atsuko, would you-"

"'course, Yuki," Atsuko says, waving Yuki off. "This way, ladies." She bows grandly, ushering Sakura and Rin out of the room.

Yuki reclaims her seat, folding one leg across another, and you take the seat opposing her.

"To business, then," she says.

"Yeah. So, the defensive pact... we're interested," you say, nodding. "But my friends would like to meet you first."

"Of course," Yuki says, nodding. "And since I will have to meet them anyway for the antimagic enchantment, we could do it today?"

"If you can, yes," you agree. "Now, the other matter would be payment?"

"Today is fine," Yuki agrees. "Payment. I feel that with the Clear Seed and with the defensive pact, I would ask for cash."

"Can I just say - the Clear Seed is not contingent on this deal?" you say.

"You are terrible at bargaining," Yuki says flatly.

"I want to help people," you say. "Which means I don't withhold something that's a basic need."

"I stand by my statement," Yuki says. "I would ask for five hundred thousand yen a month."

"Done," you say without blinking. You're actually running a little light on actual yen, after paying for the apartment. You could afford this, but it'd be better if you can conserve it. "Do you take gold?"

"... again, you are terrible at bargaining," Yuki says. "The first offer is set high, and you are supposed to at least offer a lower price. Yes, I would take gold."

[] Bargain
- [] Confirm it
- [] One last thing...
-- [] Write-in
[] Yuki
- [] Back to Mitakihara
- [] Introduce her to your friends
-- [] How?
[] Rin and Sakura
- [] Talk to them along the way?
-- [] What about?
[] Write-in (word count limit: 150 words)


You'll reach Mitakihara more or less as school ends.