After that, everything slurred into a blur in my memory. The sounds of battle, the cries of the monsters, my nagging injuries — they all just faded away into a distant drone. I was barely aware of my own feet hitting the ground to match Midori's pace. We sprinted through back alleys and side streets, running past wrecked buildings and vehicles.

Our escape route led us across several winding boulevards in the financial district of downtown Shoreline City. All around us, cars were overturned, buildings were burning, and surprisingly, the streets were virtually devoid of life. What made it eerier for me was the lack of bodies. There weren't many corpses around us, which had... implications that made me shiver as I considered them.

The city was covered in disaster shelters if the neg-entropy fields ever failed or if circumstances changed that would allow them to breach the fields. The one closest to the Avalon Bay hotel complex was about ten blocks away. If I had to ballpark it, we were halfway there.

"Hold on," I called to Midori, who slowed down until I caught up with her. "How exactly are we supposed to get there without getting attacked by monsters?"

She shrugged, rubbing her forehead in stress. "We'll deal with it if we see them. Let's just concentrate on making it over to the shelter as quickly as possible. We need to get Caroline somewhere safe."

I nodded silently. There was no arguing with that logic. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were leaving something out. The little girl was still out cold and strapped to Midori's back, which meant that we would be badly encumbered in case anything went wrong.

Buildings burned brightly behind us, casting ominous shadows over the street. As we walked, we passed a couple of corpses here and littering the road, most charred beyond recognition.

When we finally reached the end of the following side street, I stopped dead in my tracks and gaped.

A gigantic crater stretched across the whole width of the intersection ahead of us. Flames danced lazily along its edges, giving it a surreal orange glow. A blackened husk of a car sat upside down in the center of it, spewing thick plumes of dark smoke from its rear engine compartment. The intersection opened into a small park ahead, and I could make out the designated shelter for the area across from it. Something had hollowed the gravel out from the road with an ice cream scoop.

And at the very bottom of the hole, a large mass of twisted metal and broken concrete lay strewn around like discarded trash. It gave me a sense of vertigo looking down into it.

The shelter was supposed to be right past this area, but everything about this place screamed danger.

I swallowed nervously and glanced over at the empty street behind us, imagination running wild.

Just how many monsters might be waiting for us? Would they attack us from above? Below? Behind us?

"Are you ready?" Midori asked me softly. "Come on. Stay sharp."

With that, she set off along the edge of the crater. I followed closely behind her, trying to stay alert.

I matched her speed, huffing in pain as my wounded ribs protested against the jarring impact of every step.

This was going to be a long night, I realized.

I followed Midori in silence around the crater's edge, trying to keep an eye on my surroundings as much as possible. We stepped over the twisted metal remains of a car. Flames crackled loudly behind it.

Even though it was the middle of the night, there wasn't a single soul to be found for blocks. Occasionally, I spotted something flitting around in the shadows — a rat, maybe. And the occasional monster if I were to listen to my wild imagination. They all blended into the surroundings, making it difficult to tell how close they were to us.

Oh god. What if there were more of those things? What if I wasn't safe here, even if we had just escaped from that fire?

I kept pace with Midori as she rushed toward the shelter. I knew she was trying to stay focused, but reconciling this seasoned veteran with the perky, happy-go-lucky high school senior who'd just treated me to dinner was jarring. Midori kept one hand on the sheathed sword on her hip, ready to draw it out and defend us at a moment's notice.

Everything about her just seemed so... sharp.

Her posture was markedly different from before. She moved without any excess thought or wasted movement.

She'd changed.

I guess combat did that to a person. I'd always heard stories about war veterans easing back into everyday civilian life, but you just couldn't take those years of deployment out of them. This couldn't be faked with a script or a little make-up.

It was weird to see, but it was kind of comforting. If anyone could keep us safe right now, it would be Midori.

When we reached the shelter, I spotted a small crowd waiting outside it. There weren't all that many waiting outside at the checkpoint, which surprised me. A teenage girl around my age cried hysterically as she tried desperately to comfort an elderly man sitting in a wheelchair nearby, his skin pale white and pallid with age. The old man clutched a woman's purse and a cracked phone with flowery decorations in his hands tightly as he sobbed uncontrollably. The entrance into the shelter thrummed with power as an engineer tapped furiously away at a tablet, glancing at the open shutter on occasion.

A group of people wearing uniforms frantically moved inside through a shutter, carrying injured individuals on stretchers. When they passed through, an energy barrier immediately snapped back up as a platoon of armed National Guard soldiers stood at attention.

Their eyes slowly turned to look at us as we approached. I could practically hear the 'suspicious people approach' alarms going off in their heads as an officer's eyes landed on Midori's sword and the small girl securely tied around her back. They tensed, clutching their rifles tightly. One of them stepped forward as Midori approached and met her in the middle of the path into the barricade.

"Citizen, I need to see some government identification. I can't let you on the line if you don't have any," he said in a firm, authoritative voice.

I tensed, watching the soldiers intently. I was trying to get a good read on them. They weren't letting us in; that much was clear. We'd left most of our personal items to burn in the hotel fire.

"Well, Corporal, I don't have anything on me except a student card on my phone," Midori responded in an equally firm voice. She rattled her empty pockets to drive home the point. "We're secondary school students. In the city. Wounded minors. We lost our backpacks escaping a fire, too."

The guard raised an eyebrow at that. It was probably surprising to him that she could identify his rank just from his decals.

"I'm sorry, but I can't let you in without a form of identification. We have our orders. If you don't have one, I'm afraid I can't let you pass."

I saw Midori grit her teeth. She locked eyes with the man looking down at her as she reached up to untie Caroline, letting her down where she'd impressively secured the girl on her back.

"Oh for the love of! Look, Corporal, I'm trying to get her to an infirmary. This girl needs medical attention. Now. We're all wounded minors in need of treatment, in fact. The girl just lost both her parents!"

It was strange how, even when something as terrible as all this happened, it still came down to bureaucracy.

"Sorry, but I can't let you in without a form of identification," he repeated. "If you don't have one-"

"Ramirez, live a little. You're supposed to have some humanity under that all that armor, you know," said a voice from the shutter. "They're civilians, not enemy combatants."

I looked up from the guard, named Ramirez apparently, to see someone who was undeniably in charge walking up to the scene. A tall, 20-something Caucasian-looking girl wearing a red cape approached us. Her strawberry blonde hair was tied up high on her head with a red ribbon, and her ruby-red eyes glinted with sympathy. She wore an old-fashioned red Dirndl apron underneath the cape and had a picnic basket in one hand. The woman was beautiful. Jaw-droppingly so. Her very presence took my breath away.

"M-ma'am!" the guard suddenly jerked, snapping into a prim salute.

Her eyes were soft, but a ruthless firmness lurked inside them as she gave Ramirez a nod. "You do too much as it is. Perhaps it's time you did less work, and more thinking," she said before turning to look at me. "You look like you've had a rough night, kid."

"You could say that," I replied with an ironic grin, holding up my scraped hands.

She threw her head back and chortled at that.

"Anyway, I heard the young miss yelling back here and figured I had to come and check it out. So here I am. And here you are. Forgive Ramirez here — I understand why the protocols were written but a couple of knuckleheads will follow them to the letter."

"Thank you, but the 'being here' part isn't exactly fun right now," I replied. "We're not carrying any identification, but her name is Caroline. There was a fire earlier. We were caught in it, and Midori saved both of us."

I pointed at Midori, who smiled weakly.

"She's... she got hurt, too. W-we all inhaled a lot of smoke and got put through a blender of glass shrapnel."

I sounded terrible, but I didn't care. We had to sort this out.

"Well, as long as we're not at capacity, we're not going to turn you away. Get her in, Ramirez," she said, pointing at Caroline sternly. "And get this poor girl a stretcher and downstairs PRONTO."

"Ma'am, the protocols-" Ramirez started to say.

"Fuck the protocols, Corporal. I'm making an exception in this case. Officer's prerogative. Get them in. Now."

He walked towards us, and Midori turned, fully taking Caroline off her back before letting the girl gently on the ground. She held the small girl's hand, and I finally saw a trail of tears come out of Midori's eyes.

The Magical Girl took us aside and led us into the shelter as a pair wearing scrubs scrambled over and gently carried Caroline in on a stretcher. The shelter was cool and air-conditioned. It was late September here, so the weather wasn't cold yet.

"I'm sorry about that," she said, handing the basket to a nearby worker. "Rank and file soldiers are always so... difficult to deal with. I don't know which idiot set those protocols up."

"That was you making an exception?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Officer's prerogative," Midori answered, "Magical Girls who have served tours for four years or more with the North Atlantic and Pacific Coalition are automatically granted an acting authorization rank of Captain in any Aberration-related case. MGs like her who have served for six years are granted a provisional rank of Major."

"Huh," I said, impressed. "You're also a soldier, not just a Magical Girl?"

The woman in red laughed again, "Not quite in those terms! Let's just say I get paid to prevent the world from ending, not to shoot bullets at cute, fluffy monsters for a living. I am very happy about that decision."

"That's pretty cool," I replied. "It's great that you're helping out so much."

She smiled. "No problem. I do what I can. I'm Little Red, by the way. I'm part of the relief efforts here."

The woman looked around conspiratorially as if she were checking if we were alone.

"And I guess I could call you- Tanaka, right?" she asked in almost a whisper, looking up at Midori with a sly, knowing grin.

"Yeah... let's go with that, sensei. I mean um... that's all I go by nowadays, Red," she said, her voice completely monotone all of a sudden.

"Well, Midori, thanks for texting ahead of time. You and your friend look like you could use some medical attention. Let's get you to the clinic, then."

I was a bit curious about the shelter itself. I looked around the space as we descended the stairs.

It was a massive place, built directly into the center of Downtown Shoreline. There was a lot of bare concrete and all kinds of nice, modern amenities. I'd already seen a bunch of cots and sleeping bags throughout the joint, but I also saw more computers, a snack bar, different hygiene supplies, and all kinds of weird stuff, like an arcade VR room.

"It's not a Kong-Ming hotel, but it keeps the people out of the way and in a safe place while they recover," said Red, eyeing my surprised expression.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing to one of the most bizarre things I'd ever seen; a machine that looked like a combination of a VR helmet and a motion capture booth.

"Drone controls," she explained, adjusting her hair ribbon as she walked.

"What? How do you control drones with something like that?"

"We just do!" she said, laughing it off with a smile.

I just nodded numbly and kept moving.

We kept walking, and I saw that the building had gone down further than I expected. It was a vast place, easily big enough to house a few thousand people in an emergency. Even though I'd expected to see some people sleeping on the ground outside, I saw none.

"It's been pretty under capacity tonight," Midori commented, narrowing her eyes.

"Well, that's because, as far as we can tell, this is an isolated attack downtown with a quick response," said Red, looking back at us. "The city is still almost entirely intact, and the response teams are already containing the Aberrations. That makes us lucky, I suppose."

I didn't know how to respond to that. I thought about all the death and destruction I'd seen tonight and felt a chill down my spine. I knew this was a contained attack, which made it even more harrowing.

"Don't worry, though," the woman smiled, "We've got the best doctors, Marines, and even a few rookie magical girls on staff here to keep you guys safe, I promise. The shelter is designed to withstand anything short of a Duke class Aberration."

"Oh, I know, senpai!" replied Midori. "I'm just staying vigilant."

"Sharp as ever. Just relax, kid. You're safe here. Everything's going to be alright," said Red, giving us both a comforting smile and pat on the shoulder.

We walked for a few minutes more, and I noticed that the infirmary wasn't too far away. The halls were filled with dozens of people working, and the place was lit up with a weird, obnoxious light from the ceiling. I looked around and noticed the entire building was filled with the same light.

"That's the emergency lighting system," Red told me, "It's kinda kooky, but we use it so the people underground can see the evacuation routes and stairwells. It's a bit bright, but it's better than risking an accident if something breaks through the barriers.

She led us into a room with a bunch of beds and cots, an array of TVs currently playing news channels, and a private channel that showed off a list of names and pictures. Caroline was down here already, unconscious on a bed.

There was a breaking news report with the audio on, and I leaned in with interest, desperate to get a handle on what was happening.

"Earlier this evening, citizens around the world were shocked to receive news of a Chaos Event in the heart of the Financial District in downtown Shoreline. Celestial Sonata and Radiant Rhiannon are en rout intercept the Duke-class aberration currently terrorizing the skies. This is by far the worst attack to have occurred in seven years in a major international metropolitan, and the confirmed death toll has now reached over four hundred, with thousands of people still unaccounted for. A significant number of the missing are believed to be students from a number of local schools and universities, who were in the area at the time of the attack. Survivors have been confirmed to be present in destroyed buildings and the surrounding area, and rescue workers are working around the clock in search and rescue efforts. The ERC has been deployed to detect, identify and recover Chaos victims."

That's a pretty nice way to say 'search, destroy, and identify,' I thought morbidly, shuddering at the feral looks in the eyes of the zombies. I looked back over at the small, injured little girl. What would she do now without her parents?

"She's going to be okay," said Red, reading my expression.

"I don't think so," I spoke with sincerity.

She would find a way to heal, to move forward in her life. The cut on her arm would surely leave a nasty scar — a permanent reminder of her suffering.

But, like the scar, some things just never go away. They only lessen and fade with time.