(20)

The girls rushed out of the bedroom and saw Wakana and Jack heading for the kitchen. Without asking if they were running toward the same thing, the brunette vaulted over the balcony to the ground floor to join them while Haru took the stairs. When Reina joined them a moment later, the possibilities of who had screamed slid lower still.

All movement stopped when they rounded the corner to the wide open doorway to the kitchen.

"What is that?!" Jack gasped and pointed at the sight before them.

That was a dark-cloaked specter with a grinning, sun-bleached white skull for a face. It hung in the air of the high-ceilinged kitchen as it cackled at the curled-up form across the room from it, burying her head between her knees as her hands vice gripped her flaming red hair.

Ran was on her knees next to her best friend, hands on Natsumi's arm. Her eyes were trained on the spirit, her face lined with worry.

Wakana's jaw dropped at the sight. "... This place is actually haunted?"

Her little sister, however, didn't freeze. She charged forward, ignoring Wakana's call to wait, and with one bound, got one foot onto the butcherblock island table in the middle of the room and pushed off to launch herself for the specter.

In her mind, she focused on the sensation she associated with magic use, the same way she had done it with the fencing foil. Instead of into a weapon, however, she pushed it down into her leg, trying to make it focus into the hook of her ankle and foot.

She twisted her body as she brought that appendage around for the specter's midsection even as it continued to laugh.

There was a ... sensation similar to striking water, and then her foot passed completely through the incorporeal being and her spin sent her to the floor behind him.

... The laughing stopped. The creature turned toward her with its jaw still agape, as if it was in disbelief. As it focused on her, soulfire ignited its eye sockets, and in a reverberating voice, it spoke.

"... You dare ..."

It brandished a bony hand, and in a flash of darkness, a farmer's scythe appeared in its grip, already drawn back. Behind her, she heard Wakana scream for her.

The weapon came down just as the brunette jumped clear and crashed into the tile, sending shrapnel flying. When the brunette landed, her ankle folded, and she found herself falling to one knee.

She looked down at the ankle she now realized was numb. Darn, had she fried the muscles with her stunt? She shouldn't have gambled like that!

The brunette looked up when the specter pulled the scythe free of the floorboards. It drew back for another swing, this one diagonal, and she twisted to avoid it. With just a twist of its bony wrists, however, it quickly brought it back again, and she raised her forearms to block against the haft of the weapon below the blade.

Unaugmented and unarmed, the blow sent the witch shooting back toward the exit, skipping off of the floor as she clipped her shoulder on it with a cry before the flight became a tumbling roll. Jack caught her at the doorway with a grunt as Haru and Wakana rushed in to either side.

"Riko, are you okay?!"

"The fuck?! Did you just try to kick a ghost?!"

The specter cackled in a high-pitched, grating laugh at the sight before it, before dropping back into the reverberating bass to taunt them. "Yes! Feed me your fear! The warmth of your lives will fade and all shall remain here forever in the coldness of death!"

"That guy talks too much," the downed girl muttered, ignoring the worry radiating from her sister and best friend. Instead, she shouted across to the far side of the room. "Hey, Red! How long are you going to sit there and cower from a demon, huh?!"

She didn't have to look beside her to guess the bewildered look on Wakana's face over the declaration.

"Demon?!" Natsumi repeated from the floor, and she raised her head to look at the specter, her face etched with fear. "No ... no demon .." she denied as she buried her head again.

... There had been a glassy look to her eyes, as if she didn't really focus on anything in front of her.

Her refusal to accept reality brought another bout of cackling from the specter. "Soon, all of you will cower in--"

A white hot beam flashed across and slapped him in the face, cutting another monologue short.

The Shining Lance had been launched from Riko's raised palm, on the side she hadn't hit when rolling.

"What the fuck was that?!" Wakana demanded of her little sister.

Again, Riko ignored her. "Haru, you're up! You gotta pull Homura out of whatever funk she's in!"

After a moment of hesitation, the blonde girl bit her lip and nodded. "Right!" With that, she stood up and made a dash across the room.

"I will not be insulted by--"

The offended specter was interrupted again by another blast from the brunette, lifting her other arm enough to support the firing one, keeping it trained on the target.

Reina knelt beside the downed girl in Haru's place. "What makes you so sure it is a demon, Kelly?"

"Because Jack's here," she answered without really thinking about it. In truth, she'd been waiting for an attack ever since the classmate brought up the trip.

The boy still supporting her balked at that a little. "M-me?! What do I have to do with it?"

Reina didn't seem to really follow that logic either, so she provided another reason. "Also, we already know there's an actual spook, and Haru said it's afraid of this thing. Ergo ipso facto whatevo, that's not the ghost. And it wants us afraid. Maybe I've seen too many used car salesmen, but if anyone tries this hard to convince me of something, I assume they're lying."

The words had worked even Wakana out of her stun, but she shook her head. "Light shows aside, little sis, whatever lies he's telling, he sure looks spooky to me."

"Spooky, yes," the council president agreed, "but if it is a demon, we can fight it. Can you stand?"

The brunette looked down at her ankle and willed it to move. It seemed functional enough, just numb, and even that was starting to fade to pins and needles. Pleased to see no lasting damage had been done, she nodded as she moved to get her feet under her. "Yeah, let's do this."

Across the room from them, the specter still ranted at the now three girls over there. "It does not matter what you do, little girl! You only prolong the inevitable! Soon all you know will be terror!"

Haru had her eyes squeezed shut as she focused all of her attention on Natsumi. She was moving her lips over and over in some litany she was saying to herself, her head bobbing in time to it as she hugged the redhead to her. The more the specter taunted, the more frustrated she seemed, but finally, she tore her eyes open and glared at him as she shouted her litany out loud as if it were a retort. "HAPPY THOUGHTS!!!"

The nonsensical reply caused a moment of silence to hang over the room as even the specter had to process that, and that was silence enough. Natsumi's shoulders relaxed and the glaze dissipated a little from her eyes as her head lifted again from her knees.

"There you go, Natsumi," she coached the girl, easing her on up, almost pulling her as much with her words as her limbs. "You'll feel even better when you transform, won't you?"

The redhead nodded slowly first, then sniffed. "Yeah." It was a weak word, but she nodded again, and her eyes focused. "Yeah, I'm ready."

As one, the five girls stood and did the same pose, with their arms diagonally across their torsos, then threw their hands toward the sky.

"TRANSFORM!"

Wakana and Jack had to bring their arms up to protect their night-adjusted eyes as a rainbow of light erupted before them, the girls' individual shouts lost in the cacophony of one another. When the light faded, the five high schoolers stood before them changed, different yet recognizable.

"Riko, what the heck?!"

Wakana's first words the moment she found her voice probably weren't the best thought out, but she didn't seem to notice as she stared slack-jawed at the gold and orange outfit her little sister had changed into.

But the specter was not put off by the sight. It laughed at them again. "Little girls dressed up like princesses," it taunted first in its high voice, then dropped the tone low, the discomforting reverberation constant throughout. "Don't you know you're playing Marie Antoinette?!"

It threw its head back and cackled, this time a shrill, echoing rattle that came at them like a tidal wave of sound. Every person in the room grabbed their ears and instinctively braced against it.

When the brunette opened her eyes, she shut and opened them again just to confirm she had actually done so. Everything was pitch black. Oddly, some part of her noted she could still see her hand in front of her face.

Was this some kind of attack? Some sort of magical darkness to obscure their senses? An uneasiness at the lack of sound or movement began to eat at her nerves as she held herself ready, senses peeled for anything.

"Riko!"

She turned to the side and there was Wakana, unable to stand, her eyes focused on nothing, a victim, perhaps, of the same darkness and without magic to push through. Still, the older girl seemed to know where she was and reached toward her.

"Riko ..." she said again more softly, tears in the corners of her eyes. "Riko, run ..."

The next instant, a scythe held in bony hands came down and cleaved the young woman in two, from the top of her head down to the ground like a sliced fruit.

"WAKANA!!!" she screamed in anguish, but the sight faded away alongside the specter's gloating chuckle.

The darkness returned as she tried to orient herself. She wanted to run for Wakana's body, but she restrained herself. She had to be ready for the next attack. If she lost track of where she was in the darkness, she'd be that less able to help anyone. Wakana couldn't have survived that, she told herself. There was nothing to be done for her. Damn it, why hadn't the demon used a seal?!

"Riko, there you are!" This time, it was Haru, still transformed. Was that what allowed them to see? Could the brunette had seen more if she could actually transform into Thunder Witch instead of this cheap imitation?

Flare Witch jogged toward her from her other side, making her turn around toward her, but she slowed as she got close. The blonde's face turned to a frown as she tilted her head. "What happened? You're crying!"

"That thing got Wakana," she told her. "It used this darkness to--" Her eyes widened as she saw a glimmer behind the girl who had just started to put on a reassuring smile for her. "HARU, NO!"

The scythe struck again, taking the still-smiling head right off the witch's shoulders. The body collapsed as the twintailed melon rolled to her feet.

The brunette was in shock. No. No, it was wrong. She moved for the head, but the darkness took them both again. She wasn't watching her surroundings anymore. She wasn't listening for the next strike. She fell to her knees as her brain tried to refuse everything that she had witnessed. This couldn't be happening.

The specter tittered at her shattered form. "One at a time," he crowed softly. "One at a time, I'll send all of the princesses home ..."

Slowly, the darkness seeped into her body, chilled her bones. It offered oblivion. All she had to do was accept that struggling was pointless, and it would send her to her sister and her best friend.

... Something about that caught her brain and jumpstarted her mind. Slowly, with trembling limbs, she forced herself to climb to her feet against the darkness's pull. The positions. The positions were all wrong. And if the demon could kill them so easily, why did she need to surrender for it to do the deed?

The fear and anguish didn't leave her, but the more she thought about the problems, the harder her mind pumped.

"Oh-ho?" the specter's voice reached her again. "What's the matter? You seem confused ..."

"Haru was across the room. I was in the doorway. She was with Homura. Wakana ... Where was Wakana?"

She stumbled now like she really was blind in the darkness as she tried to recall how she had already turned to orient herself.

The specter's skulled face appeared before her. "The fear has rattled your head loose," it told her as it hovered closer, more of it manifesting out of the darkness. Haru's head was held in the crux of its arm, and it held it up next to its own. "Don't worry, we'll make sure it goes on straight!"

It cackled at her again, but this time, she ignored it, focusing on the darkness, imagining the layout of the kitchen and hallway.

"Wakana was ... to my right ... And you were ..."

"Eh?"

She started running again, away from the spirit holding her best friend's head as a flash of gold came off of her wrist and formed into a sword of evangelium and hordestadt. She jumped, put her foot down, felt the elevated surface of the island she couldn't see, and swung the beautiful blade down.

The sword went flying from her hand, sailing end over end before it clattered to the ground out of reach behind her.

The mansion's kitchen was around her. Everyone was there, slumped to the ground in various states of collapse, trembling, shaking, what eyes she could see had tears in them.

She was being held aloft by the specter's bony limbs, its strength disproportionate to its appearance. It had her by the neck. She could feel the strain on her spine as the weight of her body dangled from it.

"Your misbehavior is beginning to wear on my patience, little princess," the specter hissed at her, its every syllable sending a chill through her. Its eye sockets lit up with that swirling fire again as it peered into her face. "Fall into my gaze, little witch, and return to the depths of despair ..."

She could feel the force of its gaze, pulling her in like a whirlpool. She could see the darkness gathering around her once again. The darkness where Haru, sweet Haru, was beheaded and used as a prop, and Wakana, the older sister she had just met so recently yet felt like she had known all her life, was bisected. The darkness where all of her other friends would join them.

She willed her arms to rise against the pure, unnatural terror that gripped them. Sluggishly, jerkingly, they obeyed. She raised her hands to the only thing she could distinguish and gripped the sides of the specter's skull. The abyss continued to pull and she struggled to keep her eyes even a little open. Her thumbs slipped into the empty sockets.

The specter tittered like it tickled. "What do you think you are doing, little princess? Gouging out my eyes? How unladylike. Can't you see I have none?"

She grit her teeth as she held her focus in a mental vice grip. "I wasn't ... after your eyes ..." And she threw that focus forward with all of her being, all of the emotional fury she could gather. "... you ... BASTAAAARD!"

As she shouted, she again poured as much of her magic down her limbs and into the skull that was the center of existence. Lightning flashed down her limbs and into the specter, illuminating the room in electric blue as bolts soared off of it looking for a ground. Its shrill scream split the air and stirred the sleepers around it, but she paid them no mind, only continuing to focus pumping as much of her will into its skull for as long as she could.

Lightning bounced out and rattled the hanging pots and pans. It leaped and ran across the window sills. It spun about the top of the wood stove and jumped back into her. Both her hands and its sockets started to smoke. The others in the room began to gasp and yelp as stray bolts struck near to them, but the witch and the ghost kept their death grips on one another.

Finally, with a twisted yowl, the specter managed enough motor control to hurl her away from it and the lightning faded as she slid across the floor.

Wakana was quick to snatch her up and pull her back into the perceived safety of the doorway. She grasped her little sister's smoking hands in her own and squeezed them. "You have to stop doing that," she near-whispered to the groaning form in her arms.

The other witches were gathering their senses as the wraith hung in the air, seemingly gasping to recover. It rallied itself too quickly, however, as darkness began to ripple out from it again.

Behind the brunette, she noticed Jack set his jaw and move to get his foot under him.

"ENOUGH."

But the declaration wasn't from Jack. Reina, no, Sacred Witch stood from where she had been driven down to one knee by the surprise attack before. Slowly, she began to step toward the specter, and the darkness parted for her.

"I am ashamed that a parasite like you managed to catch me unaware," she told the suddenly silent spook. But when she was nearly to him, she willed her transformation away from her so that she stood before it in nothing but her pajamas, and still her expression didn't waver.

"But I do not fear you."

Reina stared directly into those balefire eyes that had nearly sucked Sword Witch down into them. She stared right into them as if daring them to try taking her the same way.

The specter did nothing but stare back.

By degrees, the malaise of fear that laid like a fog over the room began to lift. The occupants stirred, then gradually found their feet. The terrible darkness retreated, leaving only the normal darkness illuminated by the moon outside and a camping lantern on the counter.

The specter, they all slowly realized, suddenly didn't seem scary at all.

A moment later, it lost the staring contest as it broke away from Reina and bolted for the exit. The terror was in its own voice as it screamed out, "MASTER! SAVE ME!"

"Everyone," Reina ordered without having to elaborate as her transformation reasserted itself in the blink of an eye, "now!"

The specter ran headlong into a barrier that cut off its escape, and the next moment, the place it stood erupted in fire, plasma, laser and blacklight. Its scream this time barely lasted a few seconds.

As the brilliant light show faded and the tension in the room relaxed, the brunette sighed and slumped to the floor. The gun that had appeared in her scorched hand disappeared in a flash of golden light.

"No," Wakana ordered as she immediately jumped to her side to hold her up. "Stop that! You've fallen over way too many times already! You cut that out right now!"

She gave a tired chuckle in reply. "Sorry, I just overdid it, is all."

"Overdid it?!" Haru put in as she let her transformation release. "Riko, you were using lightning!"

At that, Jack managed to fit a word in. "Uh ... is she ... not supposed to? I mean, besides the obvious part that she's not supposed to. You know, the same part where ghosts aren't supposed to exist."

"It's her element," Reina explained, still in her returned Sacred Witch form for the moment, "but she lost access to her magic with the memory issues."

"Wait, hold up," the boy held his hands in front of him. "Kelly's having memory issues?"

Flame Witch, unsurprisingly, was irritable at being rendered nearly useless the entire fight as she came over, Shield Witch still just off to her side and behind her. "You will, too, as soon as Sada gets here."

"Sada?" he repeated. "Miss Sada, the history teacher? What does she have to do with all this?"

"Don't worry about it right now," Sacred Witch told him as she came over and raised her hand toward his face, shadows flickering around her fingers. "Just rest your tired eyes, it's been a long night ..."

* * *

"So he really doesn't remember a thing?"

Wakana was staring after the boy as Jack helped Natsumi load the van, while she stood off to the side, safely out of earshot, with her little sister and Miss Sada, who still looked young enough to have been a fellow student at her college, as much as she recalled the woman looking when she was in high school.

The white-haired woman smiled as she looked to the college student with her striking red eyes. How she had never noticed their color bewildered her now. "Not a thing," she replied. "In fact, he had dreams of eating hanging bread off of a playground set."

"Yeah, I don't think I'm interested in putting to words just how creepy that is that you can just do that to him." But Anna shook her head and sighed. "So what dreams am I going to get?"

Instead of answering, the teacher and Riko met eyes for a moment before the younger Kelly turned her attention back to her.

"... That's going to be up to you," Nariko told her, and Wakana understood she wasn't talking about what kind of dream would be inserted.

Wakana met her little sister's gaze for a moment, then shook her head again, this time with a chuckle. "I guess I got my answers after all, huh?"

"You did tell me you always do."

She scoffed at that. "Still, can't say I ever saw that one coming up. My kid sister's a Pretty Cure! Whodathunkit! I guess that's as good a reason for all that training as any ..."

Sarasa put a hand gently on Wakana's arm. "Obviously, our first concern is keeping it all secret, but I understand that knowing Miss Kelly is doing this could be difficult for you to cope with. That is worth thinking about, too." She gave a soft smile. "What do you think? Free climbing in the Himalayas sound like a good time to replace last night with?"

The college girl looked like she was considering it for a minute, but shook her head a third time, this time in the negative. "No, it won't accomplish anything. I'll just end up asking all over again sooner or later." She glanced to Riko. "This is what you said was Nariko's secret, yeah?"

The brunette nodded.

Wakana folded her hands behind her head and propped one foot back on its toes, shifting most of her weight to the other. "Well, then, you all make sure she knows when she comes back that if she'd rather I not know, I'll agree to the mind wipe then, does that work?"

Riko looked to Sada, who smiled.

"That won't be a problem, dear. There's no time limit on the matter. Just keep it to yourself, and there won't be any issue."

The teacher said her goodbyes and went to check in with the other girls before leaving. Wakana waited a bit longer before glancing over to her little sister again.

"So, lightning, huh? What's it feel like?" She put both feet flat on the ground again as she made a fist before her. "And so help me, Riko, if you say shocking, I'mma pop ya."

* * *

As the people loaded into the van, Seiko stood next to where an aluminum-wrapped potato sat on a surviving piece of statuary, the metal scorched from resting directly on a bed of coals. She wasn't dressed in the attire she had based on what the girls had been wearing, but a white kimono, crossed right over left.

Natsumi, thinking the potato was extra, had tried to snatch it, only to be fended off by Nariko, the girl who almost felt halfway between the two worlds, herself. She had insisted that this was Seiko's potato, and the girl would be back for it before long.

Seiko didn't really put much thought into the difference between the living and the dead, and frankly had trouble wrapping her head around such concepts, but Nariko had seemed more real to her than anybody she might have encountered in longer than she could remember. Soon after, the others had seemed more real, too, and it had been such great fun to have friends to play with again.

They had even gotten rid of that scary monster.The damage to the house in the process didn't bother her. It would mend, returning to just how she remembered it. It always did.

The blonde girl, Haru, looked back and smiled at her, and she smiled back. She soon got the attention of the others and all of the Witches had soon turned back to wave at her. Her smile widened and she began animatedly waving back. She was sure the empath would tell them how grateful she was for everything, and how much she hoped they would come back to play again sometime.