Oh dear, that was kind of a lot, wasn’t it? Welcome back! I hope I didn’t scare you off…

Anyway. To make a long story short, I went and took care of Suzuka after that. She went through quite a lot! I had the maids draw her a bath (they know about her identity, but are apparently quite content to keep it a secret and they don’t seem that fussed about me as long as Suzuka has a friend, probably because they didn’t see what happened on the beach; oh, wouldn’t it be great if Laplace’s corrupted box could start corrupting these, wait no this is supposed to be aftercare!) and I gave her lots of headpats and my phone number and SNS and email and even some extra MREs. Just as a treat!

Ah, really though, I did something bad again…

but if cute little Suzuka is happy, maybe that’s okay.

“I’m going to have to get home after this,” I say after I tuck Suzuka in for bedtime, kissing her on the forehead. “It’ll be tight for me to get there in time for the last ferry, though.”

“…can’t you teleport?”

“What?”

“The villains in anime and superhero shows can always teleport. Can’t you teleport back home, Shiori?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say. “It’s not as easy as just snapping my fingers and wishing I was back in Kansas. I can’t even snap my fingers! Here, watch!” I then…um, successfully snap my fingers, somehow, and then –

oh.

I’m back home now.

Huh.

Well, that was awkward. If very convenient.

Oh well. I’m pretty exhausted, so I think I’ll get some rest. Tomorrow is the start of Golden Week, so I imagine I’ll have quite a lot of time on my hands…

That night, though, I have a dream…

Love is the pulse of the stars.

The very spaces between galaxies, between the baryonic matter that humans so arrogantly assume to be the primacy over the universe.

And it whispers to me. As it always has.

“I knew you couldn’t just be a pretty face. I knew you had to be like me.”

Time itself is an ouroboros, a Möbius loop where the same ideas continually echo and recur. It is only a cycle. The law of the cycle, the existence of ‘Shiori’, of ‘Maledicta’, just another age within it.

Echoes of existences that came before and fell before their time call to me, and I can do nothing but answer gladly.

“Let’s make a toast to the damned.”

Deep underground, a goddess watches the whole world consumed in light.

“I turned into a killer.”

A school dorm burns in the dead of night, the only record of its sordid history the legacy of the woman turned murderer who avenged its victims.

“But it’s not enough. Not enough. Not enough.”

Beneath a boundless ocean, a family line is snuffed out forever, its only heir abandoned by her lineage.

“Give me all the peace and joy in your mind.”

A sister that never was hangs above her bed, and her sister that was always there wallows in depression surrounded by trash.

“Good intentions, never good enough.”

A revolutionary dies after all her dolls have been killed before her eyes, her ideals crumbling beneath the iron feet of progress.

An army of would-bes and never-weres. Echoes never heard. Promises unfulfilled. They were always meant for more.

The mantle passes to Nabeshima Shiori. The very Source of the kaiju calls and pulses, and I answer.

To fulfill my duty as the instrument of promises unfulfilled, desires unspoken, countless echoes of lives that fell to the will of Marduk: the Astral Queen Maledicta, whose power is the very will of the cosmos!

And one day, all will return, until the cycle ends in a singularity of love. 🖤

Monday morning, Tanegashima City.

“Hikari!” A bubbly, tanned, short-haired blonde invades the dorm room of Nabeshima Hikari, the one they both share. “I’m back home from visiting my cousin! I didn’t think you’d be back until this morning, have you been here all day?”

A faint sound of mumbling can be heard from the bed.

“Hey, wake up, sleepyhead.” Hikari’s roommate – Akatsuki Uzume Imanis – goes over to Hikari’s bed and lifts up the comforter covering her, only to have it swiftly pulled back over.

“…I’m not feeling well.” Hikari is all shaky and sweaty; Uzume can even tell through the comforter.

“Is it another hangover?”

“N-no. Just…just lemme sleep. Go on without me, I’ll see the doctor later.”

“If you say so,” Uzume says, unable to resist the urge to reach under and touch Hikari’s hand. And yet…

and yet, that just puts things into sharp relief. Because Hikari has a much more serious problem than just being sick.

“Right. You just stay right there for now. I’ve gotta make a phone call.” Wandering out of the dorm room, Uzume carefully finds a place out of sight, and looks into her smartphone for her conference call. A three-way call between Uzume and her two most important friends (besides Hikari, of course).

“Hey. This is Uzume. We have a problem.”

“What?” Still in bed in Tanegashima City’s Koreatown is Seong Na-ri, hazily looking down at her phone as she rubs her eyes. “I haven’t heard the raid siren. Where are the monsters?”

“It’s worse than that. When I checked on Hikari in our dorm this morning, I felt something. I felt a kaijin – inside her. We’ll need to contact one of the other magical girl teams who can do purification before something horrible happens my precious best friend Hikari!”

Somewhere in a cafe in a train station to the Space Centre sits Kazumi Sternbach, sipping on an expensive latte. “W-what?! Inside her? That’s not something that happened before! Could it possibly have something to do with this ‘leaderess’ who showed up in Fujisaki?”

“Yeah.” Uzume nods, and her hand shakes in a powerful fist. The Astral Queen Maledicta, an enemy of Uzume’s justice! “But Hikari was staying on Yakushima, you know? No one’s reported a sighting of this ‘Maledicta’ customer outside of the Fujisaki district of Kagoshima City!”

“Mmh…” Well, with something like that, Na-ri definitely needs to wake up. “Doesn’t Hikari’s sister go to school in Fujisaki? If that’s the case, then…”

“Mm,” says Uzume. “It’s exactly as you say. If Hikari hasn’t been anywhere near Fujisaki, then that can only mean one thing – Nabeshima Shiori is in grave danger!”

Yes. These three women are no ordinary humans. They live a double life, to protect the world from the space monsters that threaten their everyday happiness!

YES! By day, Na-ri, Kazumi, and Uzume are ordinary young women living lives in the sprawling metropolis upon modern Tanegashima! But when danger calls, they emerge from the night in their true forms: the legendary valkyries of Tanegashima City!

• Fire Rocket! Baby, she will keep this fire burning! The hot-blooded gunfighter who believes in her own justice! No monster shall ever escape her sights!
• Freezer Rocket! What’s cooler than being cool? Ice cold! Her sword shall cleave all forms of evil; there is nothing her blade cannot cut!
• Thunder Rocket! Kick, punch, it’s all in the mind! Her fists shall never forgive evil! With her holy lightning and thunder, the light of the sun shall never set over the planet Earth!

Together, they are a melody to save the world…they are…

The Valkyries of Tanegashima, Rock Lobster!