I had expected Inessa to grill me about Lupin, now that she’d had a full day to recover from being called adorable. Instead, she was pensive, to the point that she didn’t even acknowledge it when I greeted her outside her door.

“Something wrong?” I asked, doing my best to moderate my good mood for her sake.

Inessa startled and looked up at me. “Oh, hey C! It’s, like, umm, so Ida has a rival who she was finally ready to beat at Lacrosse and they were gearing up for a big match and she thought her team would win, but then…”

I gave her a look. She blushed.

“Oh right, I don’t have to do that anymore!” Inessa smiled at that, then glanced around to make sure no one was in ear’s reach. “So, uh, we were fighting Avaritia last night, after she turned one of Ida’s teammates into a Resinner and it seemed like we were finally going to beat her, but…”

“A Resinner?” The unfamiliar word sounded odd on the tongue.

“The monsters we fight. They’re called that because their sinful emotions are crystallized into amber with the sap from the Abyssal Forest so that…. Look we can explain this later, that’s not the important part!”

“D-did you come up with that or do they go around calling themselves that, cause it sounds pretty silly for the things that routinely threaten to murder like half the town.”

“Michael’s name for them,” she sighed impatiently.

“Oh right, you’ve been talking about him for months. Who’s Michael?” I asked despite myself.

“M-MONTHS?!” Inessa stared at me in shock. I bobbed my head up and down. She slumped in shame. “The one who gave us our powers. She looks like a cute plushie and claims to be the archangel Michael; but, can we get back to the important part?”

I froze, “S-so, like, you’re telling me Christianity is right but also has magical girls and angels that are plushies?”

Inessa frowned at that, “I guess? I dunno, I think it’s kinda different! Anyway, back to the new girl!”

“Oh right!” I cut in. Inessa’s worries mattered, but the revelation that Michael was a girl had made me remember something important. “Avaritia said ey like Spivak pronouns, which I had to look up, but I think that means ey use ey/em, so we should be careful when we talk about em.”

Inessa’s eyes widened, “She-ey is an enbie?! Oh no, is this why ey keeps fighting against us? We’ve been misgendering em this whole time….”

I shook my head, “I don’t think ey’s the type to get angry about that, they did say that basically anything is okay with em, they just kinda liked Spivak more maybe? Ey was being very confusing at the time.”

Inessa sighed in relief, “that’s good. I was really worried that’s why we couldn’t ever manage to talk to em. Anywa…”

I cut her off with perfectly irritating timing, “Anyway, who is this new girl?!”

She rapped her knuckles on my forehead, “I’d get there if you stopped interrupting!”

I smiled back at her, glad that, worldview shattering revelations or not, that seemed to have picked up her mood a bit.

“ANYWAY,” she said with a mock glare, “So, we finally seemed to have Avaritia on the defensive and I thought we’d be able to…”

“Kill em?”

“TALK to em, honestly C, we’re not killers!”

I wondered. Avaritia had said Gula was gone, but I couldn’t imagine Inessa doing that. I bowed my head in an apology, “Sorry. Anyway, you were going to talk to her and…”

“Finally ask why sh-ey keeps doing this all on eir own, why ey sticks with Superbia even after Gula…” Inessa shuddered at Superbia’s name and I realized that my rescue had probably been a greater adventure than I knew, ”or why ey keeps turning people into monsters and if we can find any way to find a middle ground or talk em down.

I frowned at that, I wanted to say that some people were just evil. If Inessa had been talking about Mr. Noir, I would have had little trouble with that. But, Avaritia Wolf had been—once ey decided I wasn’t a creep—almost nice? Ey definitely hadn’t felt like a monster. I thought back to my dream; did a part of me actually like em or something? Is that why I was fantasizing about working with em? Or was I just so desperate to claim any shred of agency, that a part of me would have been content to join the fray as a villain?

“R-right,” I offered, in lieu of trying to navigate those feelings.

“And then, as soon as we had her on the back foot we got ambushed by, well, she didn’t name herself, but she definitely looked like a new Beast.”

“What’s a ‘Beast’?” I wondered, thankful for the information but worried that I’d never manage to keep track of it all.

“Oh,” Inessa nodded, “Those are their leaders like Avaritia and Gula and Superbia.”

“So new…. Snake? Worm? Possum? Manatee?”

Inessa shook her head, “Just a girl. At first she was almost, well it was dark already, so it was hard to see, but it was like she didn’t have any features at all, but then she bit me and the miasma cleared and she looked just like an evil me!”

“An evil general you don’t want to pet and/or date….” I said with mock solemnity, ignoring a spike of anxiety. I worried that my dream had so neatly matched the timing of a new enemy, I hadn’t bitten Inessa; it was just a dream.

“Abyssal Beast,” Inessa corrected absently, “And right, it’s weird! Well, Superbia Dragon too! But that’s because he’s a guy and also he started monologuing about, like, a lot of weird stuff when he tried to stop us from rescuing you.”

“And you’re upset that you lost the chance to talk to Avaritia?” I offered, steering things back on track.

Inessa nodded, then shook her head, “Well, sorta? It sucks that we lost the chance to at least try to understand em, but… the new girl seemed, well, off?”

“Off?” I asked. “What about her?”

Inessa stopped and thought, tapping her foot against the concrete sidewalk. “Like, sad maybe? Anxious?”

“Sad. She tried to kill you and you’re worried she was sad?”

Inessa blushed, “It’s like… Well, Michael said that she looked so foggy because she wasn’t fully an Abyssal Beast yet and so there might be time to, uh, stop her from going all the way? But, also…”

I frowned, thinking back to what little I’d known about the Abyssal Forest, “Well, I think Avaritia mentioned that people need strong sin to become Abyssal Beasts? So she is, uh…” I should probably have memorized all the sins and virtues, this being a major recurring threat to my life, but it wasn’t like there was an obvious connection between basketball themed monsters and greed.

“She’s not greed, pride or gluttony, right?” I ran through the list of slots that were already filled. Inessa nodded.

“And, umm, Superbia tried to make me lust so they probably didn’t find another one in like a day.” It only made sense that Superbia’s plan would target multiple students. There was no way he’d go to all that effort for a chance at one.

Inessa broke into giggles.

“What?” I asked.

“They tried to make YOU into lust? That’s like your exact opposite.” she snorted as if this was a hilarious joke and not a legitimate source of existential dread.

“Anyway,” it was my turn to cut her off before she could cut me any deeper. “That leaves wrath, envy or sloth, so… figure out what she’s so mad, jealous and or apathetic about and you can maybe help her get over it?”

Inessa nodded at that, “It’s nice being able to talk to you about these things without having to hide,” she said as if she meant it.

“Just, please don’t put figuring her out above your own safety. She’s an enemy, and if you got hurt or…” I trailed off, unable to deal with the sudden onset of anxiety about Inessa and co’s heroics.

Inessa wrapped me into a brief hug, “It’s okay, I’m not going to risk anyone’s life just to talk to to her, but...” she frowned, “But, is it really okay to want to try to make friends with someone evil? I mean, if she’s giving herself to sin so much that she can become a monster…”

I frowned, “I guess… it depends why? Is she jealous because she’s shallow and vain and wants all the rewards other people get without putting in any work or is it, like, she’s angry at injustice or cops or the environment or something or she’s being bullied and just wants it to stop or…”

Inessa thought it over for a moment, then smiled, “Right! And I can just decide after I know. Thanks C! You always give the best advice.”

I smiled at that, though I hadn’t said anything remotely insightful really. Sometimes you just needed to hear things you already knew from other people to really believe it.

Still, between the dream and getting to be a tiny bit useful, it would take something truly awful to get me down. For instance, if I happened to be a central target of the school’s neverending gossip mill, stuck being trapped in everyone’s line of sight. I sighed, hopefully it would blow over soon.

---

As it happened, in second period, the principal came on the PA to announce the sudden disappearance of our school guidance counselor. Not only did that mean that the Abyssal Beast hiding in our school was definitely gone and at least 30% less likely to kidnap me (at school); but, also, well, mysterious disappearance trumped weird breakdown any day of the week.

Oh sure, I still caught the occasional glance or whisper, but it was a low buzz rather than a constant roar.

So my good mood sustained itself until lunchtime, with only the minor pitfall that I was a bit worried about Lupin. Her uncle had been evil and also had probably vanished. Worse, I hadn’t seen her that morning, and that left me a little worried. What if her uncle had done something to her?! Still, she’d been to school the day before, and it wasn’t like we interacted that much, so I wasn’t worrying too much just yet.

Instead, I set myself on a much more immediate problem as I moved toward Inessa’s usual place in the cafeteria: Temperance.

Inessa cheerfully waved me down as I approached. Ida looked up briefly from her loaded tray of food to wave casually; but she didn’t put down her fork and went right back to eating. Temperance, however, froze and stared at me in silence until I’d taken my seat.

“C,” she greeted me without a trace of emotion, “I’m sorry.”

I bit back my initial impulse to run away and took a deep breath. Honestly, getting to beat her up a bit in my dreams had done a lot to better my mood about Temperance. If anything, I felt a little guilty that some part of me would take joy in violence against her, even if only in a dream.

“It’s fine,” I smiled, “You were just trying to help, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I should have…” she paused, taking effort to form her words carefully, “I should have attempted to approach you somewhere more private to have that conversation and taken more care.”

I didn’t meet her gaze, “really, it was Mr. Noir who had me all messed up, you were just trying to help and, like, even if I’m not actually a transgender, it wasn’t malicious.”

For some reason, no one responded for a prolonged moment. “W-what, what’s wrong?” I asked, worried that I’d somehow offended everyone.

“What does Mr. Noir have to do with anything?” Ida asked, worry clear in her voice.

“He’s got the whole evil dragon thing going? You fought Superbia right? You must have noticed they’re the same person!”

The trio exchanged a quick series of looks. Finally, it was Inessa who spoke. “Umm, you can’t recognize people if you don’t know who they are already,” she clarified. “It’s not, like, exact or anything, but unless we saw him name himself or give us proof of his identity or had some strong clue besides his appearance, we probably wouldn’t have been able to recognize him.”

Oh. Oh no. I hadn’t said anything and now Mr. Noir had probably managed to hide any clues about his plans. Sure, the Saints hadn’t insisted on any kind of debriefing or anything and I hadn’t known about the magic hiding everyone’s identities, but at the end of the day, those were excuses and one of the few good things dad had drilled into my head was not to avoid taking responsibility for my mistakes. I could have figured out that there was something magic behind no one recognizing the Saints. I could have said something to Inessa or not gotten so wrapped up in running away from Temperance that I’d avoided them for a day or…

“C!” Inessa grabbed my shoulder and shook me out of my own thoughts, “Ida and I are going to go try to snoop out Mr. Noir’s office to see if he left any clues. It’ll be okay, we won’t let him get to you so just, umm, stay here with Temperance and talk things out, okay?”

I frowned. Sure a lot of my petulant emotions at Temperance had dissipated but I still wasn’t sure of talking to her alone without Ida or Inessa to help mediate. It also felt too much like running away to let someone else go back to that smokey room.

“It’ll be okay,” Inessa said comfortingly. “Don’t worry about anything, we’ll make sure you’re safe.”

I needed to see it, to make sure that none of my confessions lingered in the air, that the smell of cinnamon and copper was gone and wouldn’t come back. But it wasn’t like I would really be any help or anything. And, besides, I’d already messed things up enough with not telling them about Mr. Noir that I couldn’t really make them protect me from any traps in good conscience.

“Sorry,” I said at last. “I should have thought to tell you.”

Ida gave me an odd look before Inessa grabbed her by the hand and pulled her away. And then it was but me and Temperance with no one at the table.

We sat in awkward silence for a good few minutes as Temperance finished her lunch. “So,” she said at length, “are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I snapped, utterly failing to land on a tone that indicated fineness.

Temperance nodded, declining to point out the obvious, “they’ll be okay, they know what they’re doing.”

I mimicked the gesture, and we returned to what seemed half an eternity of agonizing silence.

“If you’re not trans,” Temperance said finally, “then I guess you want me to stop with all the jokes about getting you in a skirt.”

I practically sagged with relief that at least we were no longer simply staring at each other, but I hesitated to respond. Sure it would be nice if she stopped joking about shoving me in a skirt all the time, but I didn’t want everyone to treat me differently because I’d been attacked and was too useless to do anything but pass out. The thought of telling Temperance to stop sent an unpleasant surge of nausea through my gut.

“Nah,” I said, playing it cool, “it’s fine. I don’t actually mind, and they’re just jokes."

“In that case,” Temperance said, smiling, “since you know our secret, I suppose it’s time for you to join team magical girl? You could go part time on the girl bit if needed.”

“Haha, if only,” I laughed it off, fighting the urge to run away.

Temperance gave me another of her odd looks and we passed the remainder of lunch in a marginally less awkward silence.

---

Fifth period brought a flurry of texts from Ida confirming that no signs of Mr. Noir remained. With that settled, the girls quickly agreed to meet after school to go over things more properly.

The group sans Ida—she had Lacrosse practice—made our way to an empty classroom. Inessa and Temperance wasted no time in setting out a number of textbooks. The plan was to pretend to be studying if anyone poked their head in. Teachers, Inessa explained as she ruffled through her bag, mostly wouldn’t object if you stayed a few hours to study while you waited for a friend.

Finally Inessa pulled out a small angel plushie, perhaps six inches tall, and placed it on a desk next to our books.

“Allow me to introduce Michael!” she said with a flourish. The plushie tilted its head to the side, then nodded at me.

“Greetings mortal,” it—she—said with an imperious tone entirely at odds with her mildly squished exterior.

Her hair was long and golden, though made out of a thick yarn-like fabric. Her halo, a golden ring that looked far tackier than the Saints’ was visibly attached to her head with a pipe cleaner, and her hands had no distinct fingers beyond those that seemed to be drawn on in sharpie. Her eyes were shockingly deep red gems and her wings, for all they seemed to be made of cloth and fluff, fluttered with a decidedly lifelike grace.

“Umm, hi?” I stared awkwardly for a few moments, struggling to find the words to ask a sapient plushie that was allegedly an archangel, “Inessa just keeps you in her backpack all day?”

The plushie nodded, “It matters little where this vessel rests. Though,” Michael glanced at Inessa, “It would be preferable were I not to be crushed by textbooks.”

“Inessa!” I couldn’t believe she would do that to a poor innocent plushie.

“Umm, oops.” Inessa bopped herself on the head, “Sorry about that.”

“Your consideration is appreciated,” said the angel, “but truly it is we who owe you an apology for causing you to get caught up in this conflict.”

“That’s,” I hesitated, “I should be the ones thanking you for saving me all the time. You’re the ones that…” I wasn’t sure what to say. I simply owed them too much.

Temperance ignored us both, instead chomping down loudly on an apple slice. I glanced at her, grateful for the distraction, only to blink twice at the oddly impressive array of chips, crackers and sliced cheese she’d set out.

“Mine,” she said. Then she tilted her head to the side, “Though I could be coerced into sharing under certain terms.”

“I’m not going to wear a skirt.”

She shrugged, as if to say that this didn’t matter and my surrender was inevitable. It felt like a return to the status quo, however fragile. For that I was glad.

“I swear Temperance,” Inessa pouted at the girl, then shook her head. “Anyway, Ida’s at practice, so I figured we should save you explaining your side of what happened and let you ask any questions you have for us until she gets here.”

I nodded, “So, I guess what’s this all about? Why does the Abyssal Forest keep turning people into monsters and where do they come from?” I trusted Inessa and the others with my life. But, Avaritia Wolf had seemed to believe in eir cause. And Gula Shark was missing.

Michael fluttered up above the table, “Allow me to explain. The Abyssal Forest seeks to use the power of sin to strengthen the sin within human hearts and, in turn, darken the First Tree’s nature until sin ascends over virtue.”

She settled down, as if that explanation was sufficient or, well, made any sense at all. Behind her, Inessa took advantage of the moment to steal a few of Temperance’s crackers. Temperance graciously ignored the theft.

“So, what’s the First Tree?”

Michael hesitated, “The First Tree guards the power of both sin and virtue and taught both to the humans who sheltered under its branches. It is connected to the feelings deep in everyone’s hearts, though only a rare few can awaken the powers of their emotions. By corrupting it, the Abyssal Forest would strengthen the power of sin while weakening virtue and sway humanity toward evil.”

I nodded at that. That more or less made sense. “And they make Resinners to do that?”

Inessa answered, speaking around a bite of cracker, “Right! The beasts infuse the sap of the First Tree that’s been poisoned with sin into people and, when their sins go out of control, it crystallizes and they turn into Resinners.”

“And defeating them, what, saves the victims? Makes it so you can stop it from influencing the First Tree?”

Inessa nodded, “We can purify their Heart Amber which lets them turn back and, yeah, that stops it from influencing the First Tree.”

“That’s good,” I said awkwardly as if ‘good’ was a useful descriptor for preventing humanity from being overcome by sin.

There were probably a hundred other things to ask. But there was only one that burned its way through the back of my skull. I opened my mouth, only to realize that my tongue had grown impossibly heavy. I stuttered awkwardly and buried my head in my hands.

“What’s up C?” Inessa stood up to pat me gently on the back.

I took a few deep breaths, steadying myself.

“I was just wondering,” I started awkwardly, trailing into a long silence.

“Wondering?” Michael asked, tilting her head to the side.

“That’s, umm, if…” I glanced around for any help. But I’d started and I could hardly run from it now.

“Take your time.” Temperance’s eyes met mine and she offered me an encouraging smile. Of course she would know what I wanted to ask. Of course that would make the words even harder to find.

I took a deep breath and held it for several seconds, doing my best not to think about what anyone might say. It was a dumb impulse. Nothing would come of it. I didn’t have it in me to shine like any of them. I remembered how good the dream felt and I had to try.

“I was just wondering if-”

The door swung open abruptly, startling all of us. Michael flopped into my arms, pretending to be an ordinary doll.

“Hi guys!” a tired but upbeat Ida greeted us, drawing a sigh from Temperance and a warm hello from Inessa.

She shut the door behind her and made her way to an empty desk.

“Finish explaining things to C?” she asked curiously.

“Almost,” Temperance informed her with mildly more frost than usual, “they were just about to ask a question.”

“Right, what’s up?”

I froze.

“I was just, umm,” I was hyperventilating, “wondering if I could, like, help you all or something? I mean, like, obviously I’m no good against monsters, but if there’s anything I could do that would help you out with planning or covering for you or anything…”

Temperance gave me a quiet thumbs up and Inessa wrapped me in a hug, “That’s a great idea C!”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to get people wrapped up in this.” Ida seemed the lone hesitant voice, “We get exposed to a lot of danger and C wouldn’t be able to protect himself if he got attacked even more. Like, it’s already bad and this would just put him at even more risk. Besides, this is our responsibility, and it would be wrong to…”

She looked at me, and the words died on her tongue. It wasn’t like she was wrong though, even if she was the only one direct enough to point out how useless I was.

“I-it’s not that I don’t think you’re great! Look, we all like you C; we trust you or we’d be freaking out a lot more about you knowing our identities.” I wanted to say that she couldn’t trust me that much, or she’d let me help, but she wasn’t wrong about how little I’d probably just get in the way. “But this is our responsibility. We’re supposed to handle it, not, like, throw the work on bystanders when we’re already letting them down.”

I nodded. That was probably what all of them thought really, and, as ways of letting me down, it was gentle enough.

“Okay, so couldn’t they join as a magical girl?” Temperance said, voicing the actual question I hadn’t dared ask. I obviously wasn’t worthy. But, while it had gone unsaid, there was always the possibility that I might have been. And now I would get an answer, and really there could only be one answer and the knowledge would only hurt. At the same time, it was nice to imagine that Temperance, however mistaken, might look at me and see someone who could stand with her. And, even if I knew it would only end in pain, because I wasn’t good enough, a part of me remembered how free I had felt with the night winds at my back and hoped anyway.

“That’s a great idea! Honestly, we really should be trying to recruit the other Saints if we want to win this, and C would be totally amazing as a teammate.” Inessa leapt on Temperance’s suggestion with immediate enthusiasm.

Michael stared at me. Deeply, I looked into the gemstones that served as her eyes and I saw, if only for a moment, what struck me as an unfathomably ancient kindness carrying wisdom I would never fully understand.

Then the moment passed.

“I’m sorry,” Michael looked away first.

“Oh,” I said, struggling to smile. If I didn't look hurt, no one was allowed to feel bad and it was silly to have wanted in the first place.

“Your desire to help is true, and you have the potential, but..” the angel considered me for a long moment as if deciding whether to say something, “you are not qualified.”

I forced a laugh; though I was the only one to react that way. I wanted to run and hide and find somewhere to not cry—boys don’t do that and it would have been ridiculous to cry about not getting to be a magical hero of which there were only a few exceptional people. Besides, the last time I’d run away from a well-meaning friend, it had ended pretty badly and it had barely been a few days since then. I couldn’t be that pathetic, could I?

“No, that makes total sense,” I said as blasély as I could. Ida grimaced and even Temperance looked a bit taken aback. “Sorry, I guess helping was a bit of a silly idea, huh? Let’s just pretend I didn’t say anything. It’d just get me kidnapped again immediately anyway.”

Inessa shot Ida a glare and gave my arm a comforting squeeze, “No, Ida’s the one being silly here! Honestly, we barely have the time to think half the time, and having another friend to help, however they can, would be great!”

“A-anyway,” I realized I was dragging the nails of one hand across my other arm and forced myself to stop, “About the kidnapping. Avaritia dragged me into this strange palace area and then Mr. Noir was there and he turned into a dragon. I think he had some kind of brainwashing incense that…”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I was obviously rushing through the actual point of the meeting, but I just needed to escape.

“It made me trust him and believe him when he said a bunch of lies about me,” I could spare my pride that much deception.

The girls allowed me to speak without interrupting, except for the odd clarifying question. No one complained about how fast I was talking, or how unclearly. I’d ruined whatever cheerful mood the meeting had, and they must have been as eager to escape the agonizing awkwardness as I was.

“And that’s about it, I woke up in Inessa’s bed,” I finished, letting out a sigh of relief.

“I can’t think of any big questions, but, umm, like, did you notice anything about the new Beast? Or have you noticed any aftereffects from whatever they’ve done to you?”

I thought of my dream. The details didn’t match. It had to be a coincidence. Even if I told them, it would only hurt more, and it wouldn’t matter.

“I've been a bit sore all over,” I admitted, “But that’s about it.”

Inessa and Ida, at least, seemed relieved at that. Michael did not respond visibly and Temperance looked unusually pensive. Perhaps she felt guilty about asking the question on my behalf.

And then, finally, we said our goodbyes. Inessa shoved Michael awkwardly back into her backpack and the girls filtered out of the classroom.

I lingered a little, gathering myself as I stared out at the football field through the window.

“C,” Ida’s voice cut into my musing. I didn’t turn.

“I just wanted to apologize, I didn’t… I wasn’t that clear earlier, and I thought you should know that, umm,” she hesitated. I didn’t want to hear whatever it was she’d try to say to comfort me. A part of me wanted to yell at her to leave. But she hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Michael said something similar to me when I first asked.” Ida let the words sit just long enough for me to put the meaning together, “About being a magical girl that is.”

Oh.

“Thanks,” I managed. I didn’t turn around. It wasn’t like I was crying or anything, January’s last sunset was just so oddly bittersweet.

----

And things continued like that for the next few days: awkward lunches and desperate attempts to return to normality. Apparently Michael was ‘reluctant’ to have a normal person in any possible danger, and she was ‘considering’ how I could be of help without risking myself. As a way of letting me down gently, it wasn’t bad; but that ended my only real possibility of being able to help.

Only in my dreams could I really cut loose, taking out my own feelings of inadequacy on phantasms of my friends. There I wasn’t inferior to Inessa’s enthusiastic passion or Diligentia’s endless focus, but rather someone who could actually take the stage with them. And sure, I didn’t like fighting my friends, but these were only dreams. No matter that they often happened around the same time as monster attacks. The details were never right. That meant they were only dreams. And besides, I needed at least that much hope.

Of course, there were two changes in the real world that weren’t so bad. Firstly, Lupin was both surprisingly fine after her uncle’s disappearance. She also didn’t stop attempting to act like we’d suddenly become close friends, which was oddly nice. If nothing else, it was amazing to watch her casually offered greetings drive Inessa to madness.

Her friendship was definitely unique. For one, she’d started giving me odd little gifts. One morning, she brought me a set of watercolor paints. A few days later she dropped a burnt tennis ball into my hands. I had no idea what drove the odd array of nick-knacks she shoved on me as “mementos.” She refused to offer more than a toothy grin by way of explanation. On the other hand, these made Inessa insanely jealous, and, while it wasn’t a nice thought, something about her looking at me with that kind of agonized want was just oddly invigorating.

I’d worked up the courage to ask Lupin if her uncle was okay; but she’d insisted he was fine, simply “away on a trip” and that he’d mentioned “his work at the school was finished for the moment.” I took that to mean that he had simply decided to cut his losses at the school after recruiting the new Beast and failing to get me despite his best efforts.

The other good thing was that I didn’t manage to end up trapped in the vicinity of a single monster attack for over a week and a half after my kidnapping. Perhaps whatever Avaritia had tried doing to me had removed that trait that called monsters to me; perhaps not. Either way, I had yet to encounter the mysterious new Beast even once. I knew it wouldn’t last, but it was amazing to get to attend an entire week of school. For the first time in senior year I actually felt like I was caught up in my classes.

And that suited me fine. I’d never join the magical girls, and it was obviously clear that I couldn’t even help them in little ways, beyond being their friend. But I could dream and I could live an ordinary life where I got to do nice ordinary things and stop burdening my friends all the time, and it would have been greedy to want any more than that. Even dad found little reason to yell at me over the next week.

And then, in the early morning of Friday, February 9th, a little under two weeks after my kidnapping, I received a single call from Ida. The voice on the other end was too childish and too desperate to be hers. Whoever it was made no greeting, nor did she offer anything more than a single cry for help before the line went dead.

NEXT WEEK ON SHINING VIRTUE ANGELIC HEART!!!

A fight against the latest Resinner leaves Castitas and Temperantia out of commission, with Diligentia alone to pick up the slack. Can even Ida’s endless persistence survive with the weight of the world on her shoulders, or will the Saint of Diligence collapse under the pressure?

Tune in for Episode 18: Rewind! Even Ida Needs Breaks?!