"
Madoka, Hitomi? Anything?" you ask mentally. You can't think of anything in particular right now, personally - you sort of feel like you've hit a wall where you
need to speak to the third parties in question to advance your conclusions further, but then, you trust Madoka and Hitomi's judgment on the politics here.
"None that I can think of," Mami says, smoothly covering for your lack of immediate response. She turns slightly to include the rest of your delegation. "Everyone?"
"
Nothing immediately, but look for an excuse to ask her for her personal reasons to back you," Madoka says.
"
It might not come up," Hitomi cautions. "
It's a difficult question to ask in a way that doesn't give offense, since you don't know her."
"
Got it," you respond, even as you shake your head by way of response to Mami.
"Then we shall adjourn," Toshimichi says. "You may enter alongside us, if you wish."
You don't need Madoka and Hitomi to help you decide that one: she's making you the offer of shielding you with their own reputation, at the cost of your perception. There's no real choice there, you think, but you feel like it was probably made in good faith.
"We would prefer to enter separately, if that isn't too much trouble," Mami says.
"Very well," Toshimichi says, inclining her head. "Then I shall take my leave, to meet the Council. Aoi will show you to a side room, and I shall introduce you as I would any other external petitioner, shortly after the meeting begins."
"Our thanks," Mami says, half-bowing in kind.
"Until then, and..." A hint of a smile flickers across her face. "I wish you the best during the meeting to come. I will support your proposal, and it will be to our mutual benefit that you succeed."
Toshimichi rises to her feet and sweeps out of the room, the train of her regalia trailing behind her and Akari following a step behind, to her right, leaving you, your friends, and one Shimada Aoi, her large red eyes fixed thoughtfully on you.
Even so, she says nothing, leading you down corridors of immaculate paper, polished and richly stained cypress swishing beneath your feet. Your friends flank you, equally silent as you all simply observe, not quite on-edge, but not quite at ease, either. And for good reason, with the meeting to come.
You can sense the other magical girls of Tokyo arriving now, their presences muted through the magic seeping through the walls. There are so
many of them, arriving by the ones and twos, making their ways through the buildings on paths parallel to yours and yet unseen through the walls, little to mark their presence but for the fire of their souls blazing bright in your mind's eye. Twenty seven magical girl groups, each one sending delegates in the ones and twos.
And speaking of souls, there's Toshimichi, moving with stately, unhurried grace down the steps of what must be some kind of auditorium, amidst the sea of magical girls. A modified lecture theater, perhaps. Magic surges and ebbs around her, the eye of a storm roiling to heights greater than you'd seen earlier. Preparation in some way for the meeting ahead, perhaps?
"This way, please," Aoi says, pulling open a door to another room, not too dissimilar from the one you'd just left. Tatami mats on the floor, a screen hiding a small refreshments area, a few cushions for sitting on. There's no grand window to this room, though, and instead, there's an innocuous looking door, beyond which you can
feel the gathering members of the Tokyo Council, Toshimichi
just on the other side of the wall.
Aoi stands beside the door, ushering you in, but doesn't enter after you. Instead, she dips into a quick bow, her eyes lingering on you once more.
"This is the room we use for discussions away from the main Council," Aoi says. "Akane will signal when you may enter - you'll be entering from a side entrance near the front. Feel free to help yourself to the refreshments in the meantime, but the wait shouldn't be long." She offers up a tiny, sardonic smirk. "You are, after all, the main topic of interest today."
"Thank you," you say with a smile. "I hope things will go well."
"As do I," Aoi says, nodding. "If there's nothing else, I'll be joining Akane."
"I have a question before you go, Miss Shimada, if I may?" Mami says. "Is something wrong?"
"
She's been giving you odd looks," Mami adds, the warmth of her voice reaching you and you alone.
"No, there's nothing wrong, and I apologise if I've given offense," Aoi says. "But it goes without saying that Miss Sabrina's powers are deeply intriguing - they're as close to a holy grail for all magical girls as you can get. I would love for an opportunity to understand them in better depth at some point, but that will be a topic for later at best. Once again, if I've caused offense, I apologise."
She bows once more, deeper than before. Mami, in turn, inclines her head, and a nudge of her elbow suggests that you should respond, too.
"None taken on my part, but, ah, I have a question too," you say slowly, giving voice to a thought that's been percolating through your mind. "Are there any restrictions on using magic during the meeting?"
"There certainly are, but we're pretty permissive," Aoi says, raising both eyebrows. "No usage of magic on others without explicit consent. Passive sensing gets a pass for the most part since you mostly can't turn it off, but we'll reprimand anyone making it blatant."
"I see, thank you," you say, and glance back at your friends, canvassing for any more 'one last thing's. You come up empty, so you turn back to Aoi with a polite smile.
"You are very welcome," Aoi says, and departs, shutting the door with a quiet swish.
Mami eyes you as Aoi leaves the room, a tiny, impish smile curling her lips.
You, of course, have no such restraint, allowing the grin to consume your face.
"Presentation?" Kazumi asks, sidling up and elbowing you in the side, almost as if she can
smell the mischief brewing.
"
Presentation," you declare, one finger thrust grandly skywards.
"... oh," Umika says. "There's three of them."
"Presentation
is important, Miss Misaki," Mami says primly. "We want to make a good first impression, don't we?"
"Oh, I certainly understand as much, Miss Tomoe," Umika says, pushing her glasses up her nose. "I'm just... reminded that Kazumi, in turn, learned the importance of it from her mentor."
"You know, if anyone asks,
Homura's my mentor," Sayaka mutters to no one in particular. She sighs, then grins and cracks her knuckles. "Oh well. How are we doing this?"
"
Don't scare them too much," Hitomi says. "
I trust you can read the audience."
"Ok, ok, gather round, everyone," you say, a bright grin on your face. You look around at your friends: Mami and Sayaka on either side of you, Kazumi and Umika and Niko to Mami's right, Mika opposite the circle to you, and Shinobu and Moe to Sayaka's left. An equally manic grin splits Kazumi's face, her eyes glittering in excitement, while Mika looks amused.
"I gather we're intending to make an impression?" Moe says, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet. "I'm not opposed, but aren't they all gonna be jumpy?"
"Yeah, we
will have to read the audience and adjust on the fly," you say, shamelessly stealing Hitomi's advice. "Theatricality has a point, though - some, if not all of them, already have their mental images of us, and some are already dead set against us. What we can do to disrupt that has a very real utility, let alone cementing our own position."
"I wasn't disagreeing," Moe says thoughtfully. "Shinobu, could you be a dear?"
"Hm? Oh, gotcha," Shinobu says, frowning as she cups her hands together. You feel her magic sparking to life, pouring through the palms of her hands to form golden dust.
"Speaking of positions, does it strike anyone as kind of funny that Chiyoda argued us from giving out free stuff
down to establishing a heavily fortified forward operating base in their territory?" you say. "I mean, they had pragmatic reasons for it, but..."
Sayaka's not the only one to snicker, a wave of laughter going around your group of friends.
"That's certainly one way to put it," Mami says, her eyes dancing. "I suppose it makes sense from their point of view, though..."
"The world would be much better if everyone could just be nice," you say, nodding firmly. "Anyway, I've got one, er, more relevant thing to raise before we dive into discussing the presentation first - Miss Niko, you were working on a hypothesis, right? Is there anything we can do that would help you figure things out? I can't help but have a feeling that whatever you can tell us will be helpful."
Niko blinks, almost as if surprised at being addressed, then frowns, tugging thoughtfully on one of her ponytails.
"How old do you think the Imperial Regalia she's wearing are?" she says. Without waiting for an answer, she turns to Sayaka. "You've got a perception power, right? Use it later."
"Right..." Sayaka says, confusion flickering across her face. "I'm not sure if I can tell, but I'll try."
"Within a couple centuries will do," Niko says. She turns back to you abruptly. "If I can get a skin or hair or blood or something sample off her, that's ideal, but fat chance of that. The way she controls magic is deeply unusual - it's like no magical girl or enchantment I've ever seen. I don't know what to make of it."
"... I'll keep an eye out for hair?" you say, frowning. Niko's turning her attention to
age, huh? The thought would line up with how Toshimichi seems to like to present herself as older than she looks, an imperial spirit incarnated to rule. Still, not exactly relevant for the moment.
"Well... If there's nothing else you can tell us now, Miss Niko?" She shakes her head, so you continue, grin returning. "Then let's get back on track.
Presentation."
"Presentation!" Kazumi cheers.
"Do we want to demonstrate our individual powers or some display of the Constellation as a whole?" Mika asks. "I can do rolling thunderclouds."
"As a whole," you say, rubbing your chin. "We're a coalition, after all."
"But Sabrina's powers should be the centerpiece," Mami says thoughtfully. She smiles at you. "After all, we're here to talk about providing them with cleansing, aren't we?"
"Right, yeah! Sabrina's gotta go down the center," Kazumi says. "OK, clouds, Grief, we need stars. I've got a couple spells for lights and lasers, uh..."
"Shadows," Mami says, smiling. "Kazumi, could you darken the cloud? And, ah, Sayaka, you brought lightning, did you not? Do you think you could tune it to light the cloud from within?"
"I think so," Sayaka says, hand darting under her cloak to sort through her power jewels. "Yeah. We don't have much time to practice, do we?"
"No, but it doesn't need to be perfect," Mami says. "I believe what we'll do is..."
You smile, and let the professional work.
===
You enter the Council meeting room to a roll of thunder and the utter silence of the magical girls attending.
The door is just an ordinary door, wide enough for one person to fit through at a time -two if they're friendly- but that's not a problem.
In the moment that the door opened, you get a glimpse of the auditorium beyond: carpeted floors and wooden desks in layered tiers, rising away from a central dais upon which the Chiyoda group sits. Twenty seven groups in an enormous auditorium is room enough to give each delegation generous elbow room - to give each one of them a healthy buffer zone between each other.
A heartbeat later, darkness obscures your vision of the auditorium. You can see it in your mind's eye, midnight-dark velvet spreading in a billowing cloud that consumes the floor and drinks in the light. Kazumi's shadows and a leashed thundercloud, courtesy of Mika, shepherded by swirling winds that tug at hair and clothes and skirt daintily around the Chiyoda group, who in turn remain placidly upon their dais.
Of course, you see none of this, hurrying to guide the rest of the Constellation through the door, concealed beneath cover afforded by the darkness. Mami leads the way, flashing you a swift smile as she dives into the shadow without hesitation, Sayaka hot on her heels, then Mika, then Kazumi, then Umika, then Niko -who rolls her eyes at you- and last but certainly not least, Shinobu, and Moe.
You take the rear, striding into the abyssal blackness. You can't see, but you can certainly feel, Grief flooding ahead of you in nanoscopic fog. So too do you keep Grief hovering at the shoulders of your friends, nudging and guiding them into position. You can hear the murmurs, annoyance and confusion spreading unseen among the girls of the Council. Toshimichi, warned ahead of time, simply stays still, and waits.
Then:
Light.
A single star kindles to life within the darkness, a coil of lightning provided by Sayaka, twisted on itself to form an orb of glowing radiance.
Mami steps up, steps
through the star. She emerges from the clouds, striding up to the dais without hesitation. Your mind supplies you with the mental image, Mami standing tall and radiant, head held high and haloed by the light of another eight stars blazing to life.
And of course, the ever-important
feedback.
"
Plan A, plan A," Mami says, telepathy reaching out. "
Too on edge. Plan A."
You'd expected that, of course. Plan B was always a long shot, the one you'd go with if the Council seemed receptive, with
music and everything. No dance number, though, you're not sure
anyone wants a dance number other than Kazumi. And for some reason, Moe, but you're not entirely sure she was being serious.
"Members of the Tokyo Council!" she calls, proud and strong. "I am Tomoe Mami of Mitakihara, and I am here today as part of the Constellation."
The shadows fall.
Eight stars, eight of you, arrayed flanking Mami - you're at her right, of course. For once you have a dramatic wind, one that rises, curls around you, and sets your coat billowing out to the side. Courtesy of Mika, of course, just as the dispersing mist is her doing.
You take in your first real sight of the Tokyo Council, arrayed in rising tiers around you. Twenty seven magical groups... well, twenty six, considering Chiyoda behind you. A brilliant rainbow of colour is laid out before you, a riot of vibrant costumes and hair colours, with an equally varied range of expressions from incredulous to amused to impressed.
"We are the Constellation," you say, picking up the thread from Mami. You smile, your eyes sweeping the chamber. "Thank you for having us today."
You spot Kurenai, a splash of flame-red near the back of the room. She meets your eyes, nodding slightly as your gaze passes her. At her side is Terumi - bringing her is
definitely a good idea, considering her empathy. And there, to the left of the room, you spot Ueda Noa, that girl who you'd met in Sendai all that time ago. She ducks her head as she notices your gaze, smiling awkwardly.
And then comes the clapping, slow and sarcastic, from a girl in the front row. Pink hair with purple tips falls in curls, shadowed beneath a frilled hat of cream and gold. You can't see much more of her costume from where you're standing, but rather more interestingly, around her are another four magical girls - a group of five amidst other delegations of ones and twos.
The clapping falters after a moment, the girl seeming to give it up as a bad job when she doesn't even get any laughter.
"The Tokyo Council welcomes you," Toshimichi intones, her voice taking on an air of the formal. "Please, feel free to state your case."
[] Write-in (word count limit: 150 words)
=====
Man, I gotta say, I'm still not entirely happy with this one (I think one of the issues was the planning scene, which as you can see, was dropped
). But sometimes, you gotta just bite the bullet. (I'd appreciate concrete feedback on this one!)
