The smell of iodine and antiseptic was a lullaby I knew too well.

I sat on the edge of a cot, nursing my own injuries —a sprained wrist, a gash on my arm that was already knitting itself closed, the lingering echo of power that still hummed under my skin. But the real ache was for the girl sleeping in front of me.

Midori. Or at least, that's the name she chose when she left her previous life behind.

I reached out, my fingers hovering just above her forehead, before I pulled back.

I didn't want to wake her.

She needed this. She needed the rest, the quiet.

"Heh, I'm such a hypocrite aren't I?," I mumbled, letting out a small sigh as I adjusted my crooked glasses.

I was exhausted. But I needed to stay alert and awake. Strange things tended to happen during Chaos Events with high entropic magnitudes.

Midori's breath was shallow, her face pale, but it was the hand she kept clamped around the hilt of her sword that told the whole story. She was fighting even in her sleep, guarding something precious. I recognized the posture.

It was the same one she used to have when she'd first found me, all those years ago, a scrawny little girl with a violin case and the confidence of a housecat, trying to pretend the world hadn't already ended for me twice over.

Yet somehow, for some reason or another, I'd awakened as a Magical Girl.

I remembered the first time I saw her. Not as a mentor, but as a weapon. A blade honed to a razor's edge, a flicker of crimson and gold against the backdrop of a ruined city. She was everything I wasn't: confident, decisive, deadly.

She was a prodigy. The kind of Magical Girl that the higher-ups at the Nexus loved to parade around, a symbol of the power they could cultivate. I'd been promising, but in spite of my great talent for controlling mana and lumina - I was still just a kid. And I was scared.

I was terrified.

And really, I still am.

But Midori... she saw something in me. Something beyond the fear. She took me under her wing, not out of obligation, but out of a genuine, almost fierce, desire to see me succeed.

She taught me how to fight, how to harness my power in my own way. But it was the quiet moments that mattered most.

The late-night training sessions, the shared cups of tea after a brutal mission, the way she'd listen to me practice my violin, a small, proud smile on her face, even when I hit a wrong note. The warmth I'd felt from the Void Clan and Caroline was genuine, but it was distant, an ember I could see but never touch. They'd taught me the basics, the rudimentary forms of their ancient arts, but they'd always held me at arm's length. "You are not of our blood, little songbird," the old Matriarch had told me, her voice soft but regretful. "We cannot teach you the secrets of our soul."

It was always strange how magic was like an imprint on reality. A pattern in the tapestry of existence that could be learned, copied, but never truly duplicated without the original weaver's touch. I understood their position, truly. Some things were sacred. Some things had to be kept within the family.

But because of that, there was always an underlying sense of not belonging, a constant feeling of being an outsider looking in.

My friendship with Midori, on the other hand, was a bonfire. A shared warmth that I could feel down to my bones. A place where I didn't have to be the prodigy, the survivor, the girl with the strange penchant for magic.

I could just be... me.

Natasha.

And she'd accepted me, flaws and all. She'd seen my fear, my doubt, my desperate need for a place to belong, and she hadn't turned away. She'd just... stayed. I'd still spent most of my time with Caroline, but she was so busy training to become a proper Void Clan sorceress and she had her own life, her own friends. But Midori... she was always there.

Always.

And I'd repaid that trust with...

My gaze drifted down to my hands. I flexed my fingers, feeling the injuries that'd persisted from the battle outside the shelter.

I'd avoided talking to her or any of my old friends and companions since returning to this city. Being in the same school as her had been a shock. It felt like a cosmic joke.

And I hadn't had the courage to face her.

What was I supposed to say?

"Sorry I got to keep my powers while you lost yours?"

"Sorry I wasn't good enough to save you from having to make that choice because I'd slacked off for months?"

"Sorry that your little brother - the serene, smiling boy I remember fondly... is dead?

The guilt was a heavy cloak I'd worn for three years, a second skin I couldn't shed. It was a weight that had settled in my soul, a constant, dull ache that reminded me of everything I'd lost, everything I'd failed to protect.

Midori had always been the strong one. Everyone looked up to her. She was a prodigy, a living legend in the making by fifteen. She was the older sister I never had.

But in one horrific moment, it had all been torn away.

I remembered the fight, the air thick with the stench of ozone and despair, the roar of the Aberration that threatened to consume everything we held dear. I remembered the desperate gamble, the sacrifice she'd made to save us, to save me.

A sacrifice she'd been forced into after the people she loved the most in the world had sacrificed themselves to give her an opening.

A sacrifice that had cost her everything.

She'd given up her magic. Her power. Her very essence as a Magical Girl.

To save the world, she had to become ordinary. And in a world like this, ordinary was a death sentence.

I'd watched it happen, broken and injured on the ground, a helpless spectator to their sacrifices. And I'd done nothing.

I had always perceived magic with a form of synesthesia. It was all around us, a shimmering, vibrant tapestry of light and sound. The Void Clan's magic was a deep, resonant thrum, a dark and powerful melody that spoke of ancient secrets and untold power.

Uriko's imprint was different. It was a brilliant, dazzling crescendo of light and sound, a chorus of pure, unadulterated power that could shatter mountains and part seas.

The memory of her collapsing, her light fading, the silence where there should have been a symphony was a sound I would never forget.

And it had come not too long after I'd failed the Void Clan as well.

"Hey, Midori..." I whispered to the unconscious girl. "You know... your little brother..."

I paused, a lump forming in my throat. "He would've been so proud of you. He always looked up to you. You know that, right? Even if he was a little snot about it sometimes."

I looked at her, at the peaceful expression on her face, and a single tear traced a path down my cheek.

"You were always my hero, you know that?" I whispered. "You still are."

I wiped the tear away with the back of my hand, my voice a raw, painful confession.

It felt cowardly to say this to her while she was unconscious, but I couldn't say it when she was awake. I knew she didn't fault me. I knew she'd tell me that it wasn't my fault, that I was just a kid, that I'd done everything I could.

But it didn't change the fact that I felt like I'd failed her. I felt like I'd failed them all.

My eyes drifted to the sword she clutched, the hilt wrapped in dark cloth, and my heart ached with a familiar, bittersweet pang.

I'd seen her practice with it for hours on end. I'd seen the way she moved, a deadly dance of steel and light. She was a master from a young age, a true artist with the blade.

That sword wasn't just a weapon. It was a part of her. A tangible piece of the life she'd lost.

"Well, now," I mumbled, standing up and stretching my stiff limbs. "I'm being silly. And I'm being selfish."

I winced as I shifted my weight, my ribs protesting. The adrenaline had worn off, leaving a spiderweb of aches and bruises in its wake. I reached for a bottle of water on the small table next to Midori's cot, my hand trembling slightly.

I took a sip, the cool liquid a welcome balm to my dry throat. Then, I looked at my reflection in the glass.

It was a stranger's face. Pale, exhausted, with dark circles under my eyes that seemed to have taken up permanent residence. But it was my face. It was the face of a survivor.

And then, a memory of a different kind surfaced. A recent memory of warmth, of quiet laughter, of a shared cup of coffee in a crowded cafeteria.

Ikki.

He was new here, an exchange student from a world that had already been broken, a world that was a haunting echo of our own.

He was a good guy. A little awkward, a little lost out here, but he had a good heart. He was a good friend to me, and he seemed like a good friend to Midori, too. How these two ended up meeting and getting close over the last couple of weeks, I'd probably never know. Fate was a strange and fickle thing.

He had an earnestness about him that was both endearing and a little heartbreaking. He was trying so hard to fit in, to make a difference, while claiming his family was safe on the other side of a portal. But he'd told me enough to know that they were his primary motivation. It was the same for all of us, wasn't it? To protect the people we loved.

A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched my lips as I thought about him.

He was trying to find his place in a world that wasn't his own, a world that had already chewed him up and spit him out a few times in his short time here. But he persisted nevertheless.

He'd asked me about my family a few times, his eyes filled with a genuine empathy that caught me off guard. I'd deflected and given him bits of the story, of course. It was easier than the truth.

After all, being legally adopted by the Void Clan as a European refugee after the Fourth Chaos War and then being un-adopted after I'd failed them academically, spiritually, and martially was a lot to unpack. And that was without going into what my illustrious father did.

I had no one left.

I didn't want his pity.

I didn't want anyone's.

I just wanted to play my violin and find some peace.

And maybe, just maybe, I wanted to find a way to make things right.

I looked at Midori, my resolve hardening.

I'd sloppily executed her move.

I'd failed to defeat the Beast of Desolation. Radiant Rhiannon was here now, finishing what I'd started. It was only a stroke of luck that I'd picked up Midori and Ikki's shouting as I was battling it.

The opening I'd given the Beast when I'd turned to save them had been a catastrophic misstep, a breach of form and battlefield awareness that Uriko would have slapped me for if she were still working with me. And I'd paid for it.

I could still feel the phantom memory of my aura flaring, the familiar, comforting weight of the bow in my hands. The first Juggernaut I'd brought down. A walking fortress of chaos energy and malice, a Marquis-class Aberration that had torn a swathe through the Outer Ring's defenses. I remembered the screech of its mutated claws, the sheer, overwhelming force of its presence. The agony as it stomped on my spine.

And the one from today had been inches away from crushing Ikki's head like a grape.

But I was here. And they were safe.

That's what mattered.

I tested my sprained wrist. It throbbed with a dull, persistent ache. The deep-tissue healers would have me mobile in a day, maybe two. But the memory of the impact would linger. The reminder of my own mortality, of the fragility of this borrowed power.

This borrowed time.

My fingers fell upon the silver locket resting against my chest, a cool, familiar weight against my skin.

My memento - a reminder of my past. It was the last thing I had left from the life I'd lost, a symbol of everything I'd fought for, everything I'd failed to protect. But it was a cage, too.

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A cage I'd chosen.

I thought of Ikki again, of his earnest brown eyes and his awkward, gentle smile. He was so different from the people I used to know. He was so... human. So breakable. But he was also so strong, so resilient. He was a fighter, just like Midori.

And he was my friend.

I sighed again, feeling my shoulders and ribs ache with every breath.

I'd been sitting here for what felt like an eternity, but it had probably only been a few minutes. Ikki had been gone for a while, though. Longer than I'd expected.

I stood up, wincing as my ribs protested, and started pacing the small space between the cots. The floor was cold under my feet, a stark contrast to the stuffy, overly warm air.

The hum of the magic barriers blended into a low thrum under the sounds of the distant battle. The world outside this room was a raging storm of chaos and destruction, but in here, it was just a quiet, sterile little bubble.

But it was a bubble that felt... fragile.

A cold prickle traced its way up my spine. A feeling. A wrongness.

I stopped pacing, my head tilting to the side, listening. It was nothing I could hear with my ears, but a discordant note in the grand symphony of the shelter, a sour chord that vibrated through the soles of my feet. The hum of the lights was still there, the thrum of the barriers was still there, but there was a new sound now.

A low, thrumming hum that didn't belong.

A sound that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.

The room full of civilians, and, medics was none the wiser. They couldn't hear it.

I turned my eyes toward the double doors that led to the hallway and the restrooms.

I felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to go after him.

To make sure he was okay.

It was a silly, irrational thought. He was roughed up pretty badly. He was probably just taking a long time in the bathroom. But the feeling was still there, a cold knot of dread in the pit of my stomach.

It was the same feeling I'd had before the Juggernaut's attack.

A premonition.

A warning.

My gaze drifted back to Midori. I didn't want leave her. I'd promised him I'd watch over her.

But the wrongness was growing.

A cold sweat broke out on my brow, and I brushed aside my wavy slate black hair, trying to clear my head.

The humming grew louder, a low, insistent drone that seemed to vibrate through my bones.

Something was wrong.

I looked at the sleeping form of Midori, at the sword she clutched like a lifeline, and I made a decision.

It was probably just nerves, but I couldn't ignore it.

I'd only be gone for a minute.

"I'll be right back," I whispered to Midori's unconscious form, a promise to a friend who couldn't hear me. "I'll be right back. Just five minutes at most."

I took a deep breath, my pulse pounding in my ears, and started walking towards the door.

I kept my hand near my chest, my eyes scanning the crowded room, looking for any sign of a threat.

Nothing. Just a bunch of scared people, trying to make it through another day.

I reached the double doors, my hand hovering over the handle.

The humming was louder now, a low, guttural thrum that seemed to be coming from the hallway.

I took a deep breath, my heart pounding in my chest, and pushed the door open.

The hallway was empty, bathed in the sterile, white glow of the LED lights. The air was cold, a stark contrast to the stuffy warmth of the infirmary.

I could feel it now, a palpable pressure in the air. But what was strange was that it was localized. It was coming from a single hallway two turns away.

Of course.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, desperate drumbeat.

"Ikki...?"

I started walking, my steps quickening with each passing second. The sound of my own breathing was loud in my ears, a ragged, panicked gasp.

I turned the corner, and the world tilted on its axis.

The humming stopped.

The air grew still, heavy, suffocating.

And the world was wrong.

I stopped, my hand flying to my mouth to stifle a gasp.

The hallway in front of me wasn't a hallway. It was a labyrinth, a nightmare of impossible geometry. The walls seemed to twist and writhe, the lines between the floor and the ceiling blurring into a dizzying, nauseating spiral. The lights flickered, casting long, dancing shadows that seemed to move with a life of their own.

The air itself was wrong, a thick, cloying miasma that smelled of ozone and something else, something unclean. The floor was damp, and I could see the faint, glistening sheen of some kind of viscous fluid. Something was crawling on the walls, and it was a dark, shadowy - almost pixelated substance that seemed to absorb the light.

And in the next heartbeat, the dark, shadowy substance leaped from the walls, it didn't flow, it moved like it like a thousand tiny insects moving in unison. It coalesced in the center of the hallway, forming a writhing, pulsating mass of orange light as its tendrils struck out at me.

But it wasn't the sight of it that made my blood run cold.

It was the sound of it.

I recognized the energy signature, the foul, cloying stench of it that clung to the back of my throat like bile. I'd felt this resonance once before, a frequency so discordant it rattled my soul.

My aura erupted in a flash of gold, a desperate, instinctual defense as I was thrown back, the impact sending a jolt of agony through my already-bruised ribs. Celestial Sonata's pink hair bled into my slate-black. A shield of solidified sound pressure, shimmering and faint, flickered into existence just in time to absorb a second, more powerful blow.

I crossed my arms over my chest, floating in the air as the aurora-like dress materialized over my body. Flowing locks of pink hair fell past my shoulders as my eyes glowed a pale blue. I rotated, my aura exploding with a sonic boom as I stared down the corridor. The air rippled around me, the floor cracking under the sheer pressure.

I looked up at the mass, my eyes wide with a mix of terror and a cold, hard fury. It was a towering mass of writhing orange light and now - twisted metal. A nightmarish fusion of flesh and machine, a mockery of order and progress.

Either yet another Beast of Civilization, or the Imperator of Civilization itself. There was no mistake about it.

I quickly summoned a blade of light, its humming energy a familiar comfort in my hand. But it flickered, a candle flame in a hurricane. My power was unstable, my injuries a constant, throbbing reminder of my own limitations right now.

And then, something completely unexpected happened.

"HAHHH...."

A distorted, terrible sound rang through the hallway. It was like a million voices crying out in unison, a sound that was both a scream and a song. The sound of a million souls being torn from their bodies, a symphony of agony and despair.

I threw up a golden barrier as a wave of pure chaos energy slammed into it. The air grew thick, a suffocating blanket of malice and hate.

"No..." I whispered.

The men's bathroom was right behind this thing. It was standing between me and him. What was going on?

And how did... did this thing get in here?

I clenched my jaw, my knuckles white around the hilt of my blade.

And the thing... it was trying to speak.

But its words were a distorted, guttural mess, a cacophony of a thousand different voices, all speaking at once. A chorus of lost souls, their voices a haunting, discordant melody.

"𝕲𝖎𝖛𝖊 𝖚𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖇𝖔𝖞..."

The words were a physical force, a wave of pure, unadulterated malice that slammed into my shield, making me gasp.

"The boy?!" I called out, my voice a defiant echo in the nightmarish corridor. "What do you want with him?!"

The mass of orange light and twisted metal writhed, its form shifting, changing, as if trying to find a shape it could understand.

The bathroom was right there. If it wanted him, it would have him already.

"𝕳𝖊 𝖎𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖐𝖊𝖞... 𝕳𝖊 𝖎𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖑𝖔𝖈𝖐... 𝕳𝖊 𝖎𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖉𝖔𝖔𝖗..."

The voices rose in a terrible crescendo, a wave of sound that threatened to shatter my soul.

"𝕭𝖚𝖙 𝖞𝖔𝖚... 𝖄𝖔𝖚 𝖆𝖗𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖘𝖔𝖓𝖌..."

"What?!" I yelled, my confusion warring with the adrenaline surging through my veins.

The creature didn't answer me. Not in words. Instead, it directed its full, undivided attention towards me, a suffocating weight that made the air itself feel like a solid mass pressing down on my shoulders.

"𝕮𝖔𝖓𝖘𝖈𝖎𝖔𝖚𝖘𝖓𝖊𝖘𝖘 𝖜𝖍𝖔 𝖉𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖒𝖘 𝖔𝖋 𝖆𝖜𝖆𝖐𝖊𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌..." the voices hissed, the sound of grinding metal and tearing fabric all at once. "𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖆𝖓𝖈𝖍𝖔𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖉𝖗𝖆𝖌𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖉𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖒𝖊𝖗 𝖉𝖔𝖜𝖓."

The mass of orange light and twisted metal pulsed, a rhythmic, malevolent beat that resonated with the throbbing in my own battered body. It wasn't just looking at me; it was unraveling me, its presence picking at the threads of my own reality.

"𝕯𝖔 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖍𝖊𝖆𝖗 𝖎𝖙?" it screeched, a thousand voices suddenly falling into a single, piercing note that made my teeth ache. "𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖘𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖓𝖈𝖊 𝖎𝖓 𝖇𝖊𝖙𝖜𝖊𝖊𝖓? 𝕿𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖎𝖘 𝖜𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖊 𝖜𝖊 𝖜𝖆𝖎𝖙. 𝕿𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖎𝖘 𝖜𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖋𝖊𝖊𝖉."

I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to stand taller despite the psychic pressure.

"I am Magical Girl Celestial Sonata!" I shouted, my voice ringing with a defiance I wasn't sure I truly felt. "I don't know what's going on, but I'm putting an end to this!"

The creature didn't react to my declaration. Instead, it began to move, its mass of writhing metal and orange light flowing toward the bathroom door. Its form shifted, elongating, tendrils of chaos energy lashing out as the door stretched and evaporated with a sickening sizzle.

"No!" I screamed.

But as its tendrils reached for the bathroom, they stopped, hanging in the air as if they'd hit an invisible wall. A faint, shimmering distortion, a heat haze on a cold day, materialized in a dome. The air crackled, a smell like burnt sugar and static filling the corridor.

As the door melted away, the form of a petite, East Asian girl with a straw hat and orange sundress flickered into view inside the distortion. I didn't recognize the girl, but she shared many of the facial features Ikki did. Her arms were outstretched, her hands pressed against an unseen barrier, her face a mask of intense concentration. Ikki was slumped face down on the floor behind her, a small silver orb floating above him, pulsing with a desperate, protective light.

She opened her eyes, straining against the incredible pressure. "Round two? You must have a death wish, you big ugly jerk!"

Her eyes were orange, but with numbers visibly flowing through. Layered like a program, almost like the HUD of some sort of magitech interface. A pair of glowing blue and orange wings erupted behind her, like a fairy's - but made of pure light.

Was she another Magical Girl? The energy she was exuding... it was different. It was colder. More clinical. More... technological. It wasn't the warm, organic magic I was used to. It was something else entirely. But it was immense. On the scale of my own.

And she was protecting him.

"Sonata!" she called out, her voice strained but clear. "It's got him! I'm trying to keep him stable and hidden, but it's leaking through! I can't hold it off forever!"

"Hidden? What?!"

"Don't worry about it! The damned thing snuck up on us when we were in the bathroom! I don't know how, but it's been leaking its influence in through every local Chaos Event for weeks! I don't know what this thing is! Just do something!" she called out, her form flickering.

My mind reeled.

Who was this girl?

But the Imperator was not idle. Its form shifted, writhing, the orange light of its core pulsing with a malevolent intelligence. It began to push, its tendrils of chaos energy probing the shield, finding the cracks, the weak points.

"Symphonie Estelle!!" I shouted, channeling an orb of lumina into my hand.

At the end of the day - drained or not, I was still an S-Rank Magical Girl.

The world went silent. Not just the corridor, but everything. The hum of the lights, the distant sounds of the battle outside, the frantic beating of my own heart. It all faded into a profound, absolute stillness.

The universe held its breath.

The shield protecting Ikki and the strange girl wavered, but promptly expanded.

"Hah. Suck it!" the girl called out. "Ain't getting through this easy!"

Then, I snapped my fingers, releasing the power in a flash of gold.

A single, clear note cut through the silence, a pure, perfect sound that echoed in the void. It was a sound that didn't just travel through the air, but through the very fabric of reality itself.

The effect was instantaneous.

The creature's form convulsed, its writhing mass of orange light and twisted metal freezing in place. The distorted hallway wavered, the impossible geometry struggling to maintain its form. The unnatural angles softened, the floor and the ceiling realigning themselves, the walls ceasing their grotesque dance.

The creature let out a deafening screech, a thousand voices crying out in agony and rage, a sound that was both a physical and psychic assault. The effect of my Symphonie Estelle was undeniable. The nightmare of the hallway receded, the walls straightening, the floor solidifying. The air cleared, the foul, cloying miasma dissipating.

But my relief was short-lived.

"GYAAAAH!"

The fairy-like girl yelped and clutched her head, her form flickering violently. She doubled over, her wings of pure light sputtering, the glowing numbers in her eyes glitching like a corrupted file. The shield around Ikki wavered, the shimmering distortion flickering like a dying candle.

The Aberration was thrown back, its form convulsing, but it wasn't destroyed. It surged forward instantly, aiming its tendrils at Ikki's unconscious body, no longer hindered by the mysterious girl who'd been holding it off.

I understood.

Reality had snapped back into place, and with it, the cage that had trapped it in a pocket of imaginary space where this girl had the advantage. Her powers were somehow tied to a location beyond the material realm.

I had inadvertently broken her shield, and in doing so, I had hurt her.

"Get back!" I roared, my aura flaring as I propelled myself forward, a desperate, reckless charge. I stood in front of Ikki and the girl, severing half a dozen tendrils in a fraction of a fraction of a second.

But the creature wasn't trying to fight me anymore.

It was aiming for the boy.

As my blade of light sliced through its last appendage, the creature's core pulsed one final, terrible time. A wave of pure, unadulterated chaos energy erupted from it, a shockwave of pure entropy that slammed into me, sending me flying back into the opposite wall with enough force to shatter the wall. The hallway distorted again, and the room around us tore open.

I gaped in disbelief as we were dropped in - for the lack of a better word, an open colorless void. The floor gave out from beneath me, but I stayed afloat out of instinct, holding myself in flight. The girl and Ikki were nowhere to be seen around me, but I could see a glowing blue silhouette of a boy an endless distance away. He was running, desperately being led by a silhouette of a smaller girl as they ran everywhere and nowhere at once.

The thing in front of me was no longer a creature of metal and light. It was a living abyss, a tear in the fabric of existence itself, a wound in reality that bled pure, unadulterated chaos. It almost seemed to chitter, before an infinitely large mass of wrongness shot towards the boy running away.

But it didn't get to him.

"Like hell you will!"

The girl with the straw hat flickered into existence in front of it, her arms outstretched, her form solid, no longer flickering. Her wings of light flared, a brilliant, defiant beacon in the endless, colorless void.

She was no longer a teenage girl, but a young adult woman with a very different attire. A full-body suit of sleek, feminine chrome silver armor, her hair now a flowing cascade of dark blue, her eyes glowing with a fierce, determined heterochromatic blue and orange light. She looked like a warrior goddess, a guardian of some forgotten rmythical ealm.

It was very reminiscent of a Magical Girl's regalia, but the design aesthetic was very different, more... advanced. She flourished her wings in place, and the colorless void was suddenly filled with blue light and an orange hue at the edges.

But the power radiating from her was the same. The same cold, clinical, technological magic that had saved Ikki moments before. And now, in this void, this imaginary space, she was in her element.

She was a god in her own domain.

The air around her crackled, the smell of ozone and burnt sugar filling the void. She raised one hand, and pixelated orange and blue sigils and arrays erupted from her palm, a complex, intricate web of light and energy that coalesced into a shimmering barrier.

The creature's attack slammed into the shield, a cataclysmic explosion of light and sound that threatened to tear the void apart. But the shield held, the sigils and arrays flaring with a brilliant, defiant light.

"What in the world are you?!" I asked, floating up next to her.

The armored woman didn't answer. Her gaze was locked on the distant running silhouettes, her face a mask of intense concentration. She didn't even spare me a glance.

She simply raised her other hand, and a wave of pure, raw energy erupted from it, a torrent of blue and orange light that slammed into the creature, forcing it back.

Then, she looked at me.

"That doesn't matter right now. I need you to protect him, Sonata. I can't be certain, but I think he's the only one who can help us slam the door right back on this thing's ugly mug. I'll hold it off. Go!" she said, her voice a mix of a computerized and a young woman's.

Before I could say anything, a platform of shimmering, solid light materialized beneath my feet.

I didn't have to be told twice.

I took off, my aura flaring as I shot across the void, a streak of gold and pink in a world of nothingness. The armored woman's words echoed in my mind, a desperate plea and a command all at once. I didn't know who she was, or what was going on, but I knew one thing:

Ikki was in danger. And I was going to be damned if I let anything happen to him.

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