Fool Bloom (A Magical Woman Quest)

"Get Miyako and Reiji away! Now!" Koyomi shouted to Sfira.

The alien nodded and sped off, grabbing both civilians in each of their bulky shaft-limbs. But then they stopped to turn around and ask, "<Er, away to where?>"

"Teehee, you're too slow!" Freesia said the second Sfira stopped, as she took a toy tiger out of the bag she carried and tapped it with her sword, sending a now real tiger charging at the three non-Hanazakari.

"Anywhere! Just anywhere!" Reiji shrieked out.

Only the retransformed Vasilisa pinning that tiger to the ceiling with her gravity field kept that once-toy tiger from sinking its claws and fangs into Sfira. Koyomi then plunged her quill-sword upwards into the tiger's exposed underbelly, which made Miyako wince even if this animal had just tried to kill her. Only with the tiger being slain did it suddenly revert to its true toy form, clattering onto the train floor.

Sfira resumed their dash till they'd carried Miyako and Reiji to the very back end of the train, screeching to a halt before they could launch themselves right off onto the tracks, if not over a cliff. Miyako took ages to get her breath back, and Reiji even longer to free himself from sheer paralysis. Once she was able to, Miyako asked, "Sfira! If you're Pathragadan, can't you lend me your powers? I-I can't just leave Arisugawa-sama back there!"

"Really? Save playing hero for the stage," Reiji said back the second he could say anything.

"<I'm... afraid that's not possible,>" Sfira said, shaking what would be their 'head'. "<Transference of cultivar powers was unique to Clan Dandelionheart. I'm sorry.>"

"Then, well, launch me back there like a missile, or s-something!" Miyako said.

"Highly tactical thinking, O General," Reiji said as he rolled his eyes.

Meanwhile back there, Freesia reacted to her tiger's death with, "Kitty! How dare you- Oh well, I can easily get another one." She smirked and readied her toy sword again, only to halt when everything went pitch black in a second around her. "Hey, what d'you think I am, scared of the dark?" she said, before she was struck from behind by Koyomi.
"No fair! No fair!" Freesia yelled, banging her fists on the train floor. This left Vasilisa open to lift a whole row of seats up with her gravity field and send them crashing down onto Freesia, the Slayer then tumbling like a ragdoll back over towards Koyomi.

"Now, tell us everything!" Koyomi snarled down at her, sword drawn.

"Everything? Oh my, it's gonna take a real long time to tell you that," Freesia giggled. It was then she took a bunch of toys in her arms, toys who'd once all been passengers on this train, and said, "You've been playing very rough, you might break all my new toys. But you wanna break them so you can turn them back, right? You're so mean, just like the Nice Lady told us a Bad Seed would be."

Vasilisa looked at the toys Freesia held between her and Koyomi's sword, then at where the toy tiger had fallen. "If we break them, they come back dead. Is that it?" she asked, glaring at Freesia.

"Gold star! Your teacher would be very proud," Freesia said and nodded.

"...So be it," Vasilisa said as she drew that enchanted raygun of hers, cranked it a few notches up from just 'stun', and pointed it right at Freesia, "You've threatened the ISS and alien life, doesn't matter who you meant to go after. I'll show your 'Nice Lady' that I mean business."

"Vasilisa, no!" Koyomi gasped as Vasilisa was about to shoot Freesia's hostages. She rushed forth and tackled the astronaut, making the raygun blast instead fly right through the window.

"Ooh, are we playing rugby?" Freesia asked as she sprang to her feet and shoved Vasilisa further, forcing the astronaut right out of a window herself.

Koyomi went pale as she saw Vasilisa tumbling all the way down to the forest below, shards of the window still stuck in her. She was about to scream, lunge, and tear right into Freesia, but not before the tides turned again. Vasilisa's gravity control finally kicked back in, as the astronaut levitated herself back up and onto the now long-halted train car.

That said, Vasilisa didn't look so ready to throw herself back in the fight, her face looking drained from the long flight back up. Her Hanazakari regalia flickering in and out over her work-clothes, she managed to draw her raygun one last time and tell Freesia, "Dosvidanya."

But her Zinnia transformation wore off a moment too soon, as Freesia poked her with her sword and said, "Tag, you're it!"

One puff of smoke later, the human Vasilisa was gone, replaced with a space-age action figure of herself.

"Change her back!" Koyomi rasped sword in hand, "Now!"

"Careful! You wouldn't wanna scratch a rare collectible like this, would you?" Freesia said as she picked the Vasilisa figurine up. "I know the Nice Lady would like to talk with you, so if you wanna play with my new astronaut doll again, how about you come visit her place, hmm?"

"Your Nice Lady sends a Slayer after me, but now she 'just wants to talk'?" Koyomi seethed.

"She says there's two ways to stop a Bad Seed from ruining everything. Either they join our club, or you unalive them," Freesia said, then suddenly curtseyed. "Oh sorry, I've been rude by not greeting you yet. Everyone calls me Minakata Kurara, except when they call me Freesia in Full Bloom of course. I'm with the Earthly Purified, who the Nice Lady's in charge of."

"So, you're with a cult? Oh sorry, 'new religious movement'," Koyomi said, then sighed. "Take it I'm one of these 'Bad Seeds' then, whatever they are. And we have to convert or be killed, those are your terms?"

"A Bad Seed is a person who does one of the five worst things ever," Freesia said, holding out her fingers. "There's unaliving your daddy, unaliving your mommy, unaliving a Dandelionheart," Koyomi tensed up hearing that one, "hurting the Nice Lady, and making all of us Hanazakari mad at each other. Once we beat all the Bad Seeds, only then does the Nice Lady bring all our friends come back."

"...You're talking about the Resurrection," Koyomi muttered.

"Yup, that's what some folks call it. Nagoya's the big city nearby, how about you and the Nice Lady meet there? And don't worry, you'll know our place when you see it. TTFN!" Kurara beamed before she took off down the structural ribs of the bridge below. "Oh, and it's okay! Me and my new doll will have tons of fun! She's even still thinking there in her head, even if I gotta move all her parts."

Those last words were the nail in the coffin for Koyomi, she would've felt more at ease if those in Freesia's clutches were at least unconscious in toy form.

---

First though, Koyomi had to find where Sfira had taken Miyako and Reiji though. But instead in the depths of the train they found her. "Arisugawa-sama, I can't leave you!" Miyako wailed out as she ran up to her, only to look around to ask, "Oh, the fighting's all over? Then wait, where's Mirova-san?"

"Captured," Koyomi said. "Turned into a toy. Being held hostage by some cult. Say they just want to talk, but really they want me to convert or die."

"Hanazakari and cults, huh? Knew our country would combine the two sooner or later," Reiji sighed once he caught up. "So, what do they want you for? Not that I'm expecting the soundest reason from a cult, 'corrupting the children' or something?"

"They seem to label people 'Bad Seeds' for five things," Koyomi said, trying to parse through Freesia's babytalk, "Patricide, matricide, killing a Dandelionheart, wounding their self-proclaimed saviour, or creating a schism among the Hanazakari. Don't need to be a student of religion to tell where they got those from. So, either they figure I've caused some schism, or..." she stopped, then seethed, "they somehow found out about Emet. Found out what RUNE said they'd keep secret."

"You mean Hoshizora told them?" Miyako gasped. "Like, as payback for Blue Lotus getting free?"

Koyomi shook her head. "No, if Yumemi wanted me dead, she'd do it herself. It's not like her to leak to some cult so they'll send some toymaker after me. Either these 'Earthly Purified' infiltrated RUNE, got someone in RUNE to cave, or..." she said, breathed out, and slowly realised, "or one of them saw Emet die that day at Sekigahara. Most Hanazakari in Japan were there back then- wait, no, that doesn't explain why they'd wait so long before siccing a Slayer on me. Unless their cult took that long to get off the ground."

"<Pardon me, but... what's a cult?>" Sfira had to ask.

Looking at them, Koyomi said, "Better learn fast, cults like it when you don't know."

"Er, they're like a church but really nasty. Well, nastier," Miyako said, giving what she'd heard about some churches. "Whole bunch started springing up over Japan since at least the Frost Decade. Wait, does this mean there are no cults on Pathragada?"

"I take it either no cults, or one big cult," Koyomi muttered.

"<No one who'd call themselves such, no>" Sfira said.

"Also, big picture here. If Mirova-san's been captured, that means it's not just a cult we gotta worry about. This is Russia we're talking about, imagine how they're gonna react if they find out a Japanese cult's captured one of their ISS cosmonauts! And er, turned her into an action figure," Reiji burst out as it dawned on him. He then sighed, "Why couldn't it have been an astronaut from a country not on our doorstep?" which earned him a glare from Miyako.

Article:

Koyomi then decided how to face this cult:
[ ] "I'll go alone, it's me they want. I'll arrange transport for you three back to Hinodeharu first."
[ ] "Sfira, you can come with me, your superspeed and illusions could be a real help. But anyone without powers, stay out of this."
[ ] "You can all come with me, better for you to be where I can see you."
[ ] "I'll contact RUNE, much as I don't want to. I can at least count on Yumemi to not stand for someone else leaking government secrets."
[ ] "I'll try teaming up with other Hanazakari. There'd be more than a few in Nagoya, at least some would have a score to settle with this cult."
[ ] "...I'll contact the Russian embassy. Maybe they won't hold it against Japan if we're also the ones to tell them about this?"
[] "I'll just leave Vasilisa to her fate, she was nothing but a nuisance." [Koyomi has too much Heart to say this.]
[ ] Write-in

[X] "I'll try teaming up with other Hanazakari. There'd be more than a few in Nagoya, at least some would have a score to settle with this cult."


"You're-you're really gonna team up with other Hanazakari?!" Miyako asked as her whole face lit up. Remembering an international astronaut had been kidnapped though, she coughed and tried to restrain herself, well tried to.
"Won't it be tricky to track them down, I mean? 'Course you've got Hanazakari sense, so maybe it'll be easier for you than it, er, was for me," she chose to keep quiet about those chatrooms, "since you're usually not easy to find."

"Yeah, on top of the Nagoya-Gifu metropolis being far from a compact neighbourhood," Reiji said, arms crossed and eyes rolled, "Maybe the place isn't as big as it was pre-Frost, but still."

Koyomi sighed and shrugged. "I've barely used my power to sense other Hanazakari in years," she said, "Not never, I've occasionally fired it up for fear of any 'surprise visits' from RUNE, or that the slightest disturbance in town could be the work of a Hanazakari going rogue, okay that's quite a bit now I think of it. But success with sensing, yeah, haven't had that in years."

"Oh, maybe we could look up stuff online?" Miyako offered, but then quickly added, "Y'know, just your usual publicly available Hanazakari info, no biggie. Or maybe Sfira could help, you've got speed and psychic senses, right?"

"<I could, though er, there is rather the complication that this'd be my first time visiting a human city,>" Sfira said, their shafts fidgeting.

"Right, you'd be sailing right into the Sea of Distraction, and all while we're trying to get a cult ff our backs," Reiji said, but then looked at Miyako, "Not that some of us Earthlings are all that immune from distraction anyway," who didn't even catch his words.

"And if you'd all let me talk a second longer," Koyomi raised her voice, "You would've heard me say that I'm not going to Nagoya wholly blind. Having fought in Shin Sekigahara means you're going to remember a few of the people there… I haven't contacted most of them in years, but better than nothing," she twitched as she admitted.
"There's also keeping an eye on the Earthly Purified's church, if it stands out as much as Freesia says, and seeing if any other Hanazakari moves first, especially if they're one of the 'Bad Seeds'. Well, a third option is hacking into a RUNE or corporate database on Nagoya Hanazakari, which yeah, if only."

"Ooh, maybe I could interview any Hanazakari, or at least people about their thoughts on this cult? Get some journalism fieldwork in," Miyako said. Of course, this was on top of the groundbreaking story of a Pathragadan landing on Earth, though for Sfira's sake she felt that'd be better kept secret for now, and of course the Blue Lotus scoop. Practice practice practice! I guess, she thought.

"The Earthly Purified…" Reiji then muttered and scratched his chin. "Where have I heard that name? Oh yeah, Kazuya mentioned them once, said his family had ties to them, though it's no surprise his family have ties to lots of, ahem, questionable groups. Stil, typical cult behaviour to try finding an in with the rich and powerful, and it could solve who some individuals I saw tailing Kazuya back then were."

"Yet despite the Kai having the funds and this cult having the Hanazakari, they still didn't thaw his heart," Koyomi said and couldn't help but smirk, "Did the Kai not jump through enough cult hoops, or did they only want the cult to tell them that they weren't the ones to blame?"

For a second, Miyako's heart rose at the thought that Kazuya's parents could've actually once tried to purify him, but sank again as she thought, No, if they really did care for him, they wouldn't have made just one attempt with a cult. Well, I suppose a cult's more under the radar than the government or a corporation, there's that.

"Okay, so Miyako you can interview, Sfira you can zip around town to sense more potential Hanazakari, and Yuuki… you can keep an eye on Sfira," Koyomi decided on, nodding at each of them, "Still, you then stay out of any confrontation with the cult, that's strictly Hanazakari business, got that? I can't have you being turned into toys and, well, who knows what the Purified's leader could do to you?"

---

Freesia had had the courtesy to leave the train driver in human form, he wasn't standing in between her and the 'Bad Seed' after all. Despite the news that up to half his passengers had disappeared, he kept the train going towards the station as was his job. Saying that this had all been the work of a rogue Hanazakari proved more than effective an explanation for him, though Koyomi clenched up when he was quick to pin it on 'Witches'.

"She's employed by a cult, how dare he think she's one of us," Koyomi muttered.

"'RUNE propaganda' again, huh?" Reiji took it.

As the train moved on, Miyako decided to check on the remaining passengers to make sure they were all okay, and less nobly to get some swiftly needed interviewing practice in. Her increasingly clear mistake was in thinking the survivors of a train attack would be so ready to talk, though she did catch one comment by someone that went 'Wait, why are there two women who look the same except one has green hair?'

"No luck?" Reiji then asked Miyako, who nodded. He then said, "That reminds me, don't think you ever told me your origin story, for being a journalist I mean. Did you think people in power should be held more accountable, did you just want to hear some juicy stories, or both at once, conflict of interest aside? I ruled out family business like me with the theatre, for well obvious reasons."

Miyako blushed, then only slowly said, "Well, in lots of shows I watched back then, the go-to career for female leads was usually journalist. Ah, the go-to attainable career of course, now that Hanazakari's a non-starter."

Reiji had to wince, even if that answer wasn't unexpected. "So, the Sarah Jane Smith effect then?" he said. As Sfira approached, he then asked them, "Oh, Nozawa wants to be a journalist, er, those are a thing on Pathragada, right?" Because it would say a lot if they weren't.

"<Oh yes, there are such Clans assigned to carry the virtues of Truth and Honesty, the White Chrysanthemum and Diphylleia being two,>" Sfira said, sounding like they were still approximating this thing called journalism.

"Okay, but I'm wondering. Like, if everyone in a Clan does the one thing, what happens when someone doesn't want to do that thing?" Miyako said, as some personal memories came back to her.

Sfira at first didn't respond, but ultimately had to say, "<I know I'm the only Pathragadan on Earth right now, well I think I am, so it's natural I'd be asked that. But… I don't really have the authority to say.>"

Reiji wasn't the least bit fazed hearing that. "Huh, sounds like a planet-sized theatre really," he muttered, "A world where everyone has their roles to play."

"<Yet the people of Earth choose their roles instead. This really is another planet,>" Sfira remarked, managing what Earth culture called a 'smile'.

"Well, when everything works out well, we do," Miyako said, trying to smile back.

They at last pulled into Nagoya Station, the tallest train station in the world as Miyako was quick to tell Sfira. That its delayed completion hadn't been until after the Frost Decade meant the multi-tower structure was firmly intact compared to many others, though it was hard not to think how obvious a target it'd now be for Blue Lotus if he was a Rook-class Frostfarer.

Miyako tried to show Sfira to an 'Earth food' venue while there, picking out an okonomiyaki place since a Cinnabon was closed. "They say Osaka and Hiroshima do them better, but this should do for your first time," she said.

"Just don't throw it into the soil to suck up its nutrients with people watching, you'll get strange looks," Reiji pre-emptively said.

"<I… didn't say I was going to,>" Sfira said and looked downcast. Trying both the okonomiyaki and a cup of coffee through the slightly less weird means of sticking a bunch of their vines into them, they then said, "<It's a little more cumbersome than just naturally absorbing the sunlight, but it's unique. Ah, unique for me I should say.>"

"So, er, you liked it?" Miyako tried to ask.
Afterwards she took Sfira over to a manga store, deciding to be quiet on where paper came from, gathered up a bunch of titles and asked, "Okay, you see all these boys on the covers? 'Cause I thought we could train your illusion casting by trying to disguise you as them. Don't worry, people won't bat an eye, they'll just think you're a cosplayer. Er, that's someone who dresses up as fictional characters 'cause they like them." Only then did she think to add, "Is disguising yourself as boys alright with you? I mean you've disguised yourself as a woman, Arisugawa-sama, before, so I'm not sure…"

"<I will endeavour to give it a try,>" Sfira said, then folded and twisted the light around them… taking the appearance of what could charitably be called a Picasso painting, multiple heads, limbs, and clothes in one.

"Aiiee, I didn't mean all of them at once!" Miyako gasped and bit her lower lip, much as Reiji couldn't help smirk at the sight.

"There you are! Now, what do you think you're doing?" Koyomi walked right up to them and asked, "You do remember that a cult's put a hit on me, don't you?"

"Yeah yeah, I know. It's just, this is Sfira's first time on Earth, shouldn't we show them around a little?" Miyako asked. Koyomi's expression not changing, she then said, "Okay, so let's find some Hanazakari then! You said you had a couple of contacts, right?"

Article:

Koyomi went over a few (pick two):
[ ] "Orange in Full Bloom. She's a mangaka, some of her work is likely in this very store.
[ ] "Hellebore in Full Bloom, an actress and singer. Her 'actions' at Shin Sekigahara make me doubt this cult would look favourably on her."
[ ] "Alstroemeria in Full Bloom, came over from Peru, runs a private detective agency."
[ ] "Heather in Full Bloom. She's a certainly effective information broker, though she only ever communicates by the internet."
[ ] "Snapdragon in Full Bloom. I won't give her exact profession, just that she's a seafarer so Nagoya ought to be a stop for her."
[ ] "We'll see who happens to be around, let's try your idea of interviewing people even."
[ ] "Let's scout out the cult HQ first."
[] "Let's hack into a RUNE or corporate database, why not?" [Koyomi does not have the Technique to do this.]
[ ] Write-in