Magical Girl Neige
The moment Magical Girl Mana spread her hands open, the darkness on all sides of the alley writhed at once.
From cracks in the walls, from the floor drains, from the fixture on the ceiling, and from the tentacles busily binding people and filling them with pleasure, dozens of legs came crawling out. In an instant they filled the space behind Mana's back, spreading out like a halo — one that had nothing whatsoever to do with holiness.
Tentacles, by their very nature, feed on a magical girl's mana; they were made to burrow into a magical girl's mind. Which meant that wanting to *have* a magical girl was, inevitably, what they were for.
With a wet slap, they all moved at once.
"Transform!"
Light burst brilliantly. The radiance wrapping the magical girl's body changed her outfit in a flash.
"Neejaaa—!"
Neige threw herself without a moment's hesitation at Chaerin, who hung closest to her. The tentacles, as if refusing to let their prey be stolen away, came surging toward her all at the same time.
"Freeze!"
"Hweh?"
Cold air poured off her like a downpour. The charging tentacles bounced off the sheet of ice and went skittering away.
As if she hadn't expected her to be this fast, Mana's pleasure-drunk head tilted belatedly to the side. Neige had frozen only the tentacles perfectly and dropped into a sword-drawn stance.
"Two-cuts!"
Shiiing— A blade of sharp cold carved a crescent through the air. In an instant it cleaved two tentacles clean off. Splashing liquid caught her full in the face before she could help it. Dodging that would have meant failing to save Chaerin.
Neige caught Chaerin as she fell. Slime dripped down, drop by drop, onto her head.
"Ehehe… hehe…"
"Snap out of it, Chaerin!"
She called her name, but it did no good. Chaerin stared up at Neige with glassy, vacant eyes — and then began running her hands over her arms and shoulders.
"Let's feel… good… together…"
Goosebumps erupted down Neige's spine. Both of Chaerin's pupils had already lost their focus. Do I really have to leave her behind?
"Ugh…"
There were still people held captive all around her. Saving everyone was impossible. She'd known that. And yet. But still. Maybe, just maybe…
She hesitated for a moment — and then, in the end, scooped Chaerin up into her arms.
"As much as I can… that's all I can do…!"
It feels good, put me down, stop it — even with those words ringing in her ears, Neige twisted her body clear of the incoming tentacles.
And in that instant, Mana moved.
She was perched atop a tentacle. The tentacle quivered and flung her skyward. The next moment she came hurtling straight at Neige, right into her face.
"Senpai…! My friend, give her back…!"
"You're the one who needs to snap out of it!"
Clang! The two magical girls' wands locked together.
"Why? Why are you taking my friend away? She's just starting to feel good…!"
"You're pumping her full of something straight out of a drug den and that's what you have to say!?"
Neige felt her body heating up. She'd anticipated that the tentacles' pink fluid was a narcotic — she just hadn't expected it to work this fast.
No time.
"Hyaaa—!"
A heartbeat later, Neige blasted out a burst of freezing air to drive Mana back, then spun her wand in a whirling arc. Mana dead ahead, tentacles on either side, monsters tangled up with tentacles seething all around her.
She reflexively opened her mouth to shout a food name — then remembered her little sister's advice.
"Glaciaaaar—!"
When the sword-shaped wand bit into the ground, a powerful wave of bitter cold erupted outward from the point of impact, and Neige poured every ounce of her mana into freezing the entire area.
The ground, the tentacles, Mana, the monsters — everything went white, layer by layer. Neige spared no mana at all. This was no time to worry about the aftermath.
She couldn't bring herself to freeze Chaerin too, so she twisted her body and took the blast of cold square on her own back.
"Ghk… S-sen-pai, you're… so mean…"
"Mana, I'm sorry. You'll just have to stay a little frozen."
Hah. Neige's breath shattered into white mist. Enduring the dead, frozen half of her own body, she swept her gaze across her surroundings.
The things trapped in the ice were everywhere — but she could hear them too, struggling to break free. Crack… crack… crrrack…!
A delaying tactic. Nothing more, nothing less.
…I'm sorry. I'll come back for you.
Neige didn't look back. She ran.
"Freeze — freeze, freeze!"
She blasted cold air at every tentacle and monster that lunged for her, but the more she froze, the more new ones came bursting out. There hadn't been this many before. That much was certain.
As I thought — I was the bait to hook one of them…!
Just a little farther. The boundary of the barrier she'd slipped through moments ago was right in front of her eyes. Neige gathered every last scrap of strength into her legs and leapt. And then — tink.
Her body bounced off and flew backward.
"Huh?"
The barrier refused to let her leave.
Neige immediately flooded her wand with cold. She meant to split it in a single stroke. Glacial Slash. The frost-heavy blade flashed out.
Clang—
The instant she cut, the impact rebounded straight back at her.
Neige gritted her teeth. Not a single crack had appeared on the barrier's surface. It was as if an invisible wall had severed the inside from the outside completely.
"That's… impossible."
The scenery beyond the barrier looked perfectly normal. People were laughing, chatting, passing by. In other words, no matter what happened in here, nothing would ever reach the world outside.
"Tentacles…, with a barrier this strong? No — wait. Something's wrong with that."
In that instant — crackle — a flash of violet-black lightning streaked across her field of vision. Neige rolled on pure instinct.
BOOM! The bolt came down a beat too late, striking exactly where she'd been standing.
Shards of shattered ice sprayed in every direction. One second slower and it would have been a direct hit. Rose petals drifted down through the empty air.
"Ha."
Pulling Chaerin even tighter against her, Neige lifted her eyes toward the direction from which that ominous gaze was pouring down.
The rooftop of some building. A mana she knew — but tar-black and viscid. Amid the crackling afterglow of lightning, rose petals spiraled slowly downward.
"It's been a while. Although — I suppose this is the first time you're seeing me like this?"
Neige's eyes went wide.
"You… Rika?"
Magical Girl Rika — once, without question, an ally.
The girl who had vanished not long ago, vowing to chase down a friend, now stood at the very edge of that rooftop in an outfit so blatant and so alien it was hard to look at.
"That was my name before. The me standing here now is Angelica. A being devoted to offering pleasure to my Master…."
"…Ha. So that's it. No wonder the mana I felt from the barrier was familiar. This was your doing, wasn't it. Did they get to you too? The tentacles? Are you planning to make Mana, Chaerin — everyone — into the same thing you are?"
"Hm?"
Angelica blinked wide, blank eyes for a moment as if she had no idea what was being said to her. Then she nodded.
"Oh — yes, yes. I'd love it if you got to feel that happiness too."
"I don't know what they did to you, but drop the barrier. Now."
"That's not something my Master wishes for."
"You—!"
"Are you going to keep stalling with me? Look over there. Mana's coming."
At the flick of Angelica's chin, Neige whirled around.
Mana was walking toward her, smashing through the ice walls Neige had thrown up to buy time. A single tentacle was wound around her leg like a serpent, and that glistening thing was sliding up and down along her thigh, relentless.
Squelch… squelch. Pierced over and over by the tentacle, Mana was weeping tears of pure joy.
"Ahh…, aah… ahh…♡ Don't… run away…. Come be… happy… with me…. And Chaerin…, give her back…. Give her back…♡"
Things she'd never experienced once in her life, and now they'd happened three times over. A magical girl's fall. A magical girl's brainwashing. A magical girl trapped inside a barrier.
Neige's mind was beginning to unravel.
Can I even get out of here?
Her heart went cold in an instant — the sickening plunge of a floor dropping out from under her. The writhing tentacles, the captured magical girls. What was about to happen came into razor-sharp focus.
My wand will break, and then just like those people I'll be swallowed up in pink mist, and then — obviously — I'll be wrapped up in those tentacles, wailing and moaning.
The moment she thought it — thump — her heart pounded. The tentacles looked different somehow. She wanted to be held. She wanted to be happy.
…So this is what they felt. This is what it was like for all of them.
Neige forced a smile. She was burning up. Her head, her heart, her lower belly — even though half her body should have been frozen stiff with cold.
"Senpai, you're mean…. Come feel good… with me…♡"
Mana's tentacles gaped wide open like the maw of some monster. As Neige calculated the angles of evasion, a tentacle that had crept up unseen seized her by the leg.
"Hiek!?"
It was slick, and it burned. The spines covering the tentacle's surface — hardened by a magical girl's mana — punched through her protective suit and injected the drug straight in.
"Ah — that stings—!"
She cut it off. Pink fluid spattered. Her mind was going hazy now, too.
"Hah… hoooh."
Neige stared down the encroaching enemies.
This… I have to leave it to Hong-ee.
There was no gap to escape through. Which meant what she had to do here was hold the line — or destroy everything.
I'm sorry. Whatever happens after… I'm leaving it to you.
Praying that her little sister would find her as fast as humanly possible, Neige reached to release the true form of her wand—
In that instant, someone landed from the sky. When her daring ultra-mini skirt fluttered in the wind, the sight of a bare, immaculate pussy — not a scrap of underwear beneath — filled Neige's eyes.
The woman who had carved through a swarm of tentacles in a single stroke and made her entrance like a dark meteor wore the triumphant expression of someone who had been waiting for this exact moment.
"Found you. Deviluke has been looking for you, magical girl."
Mana radiated from the woman who had introduced herself as Deviluke. A dark power — one that felt achingly like Angelica's….
"Who… are you?"
"Deviluke knows very well that there is no time. So…."
She reached her hand into empty air and drew out her weapon. A scythe.
Then she cleaved space itself with it, and a wind came blowing through the seam.
"Deviluke has no time to explain. Quickly — take my hand."
What on earth was about to happen?
Fortunately, Neige could still think clearly enough to judge. She understood that if she didn't take this woman's hand right now, she would end the day as tentacle food — or worse, an offering on some altar.
And so, Neige took her hand.
"Let's go."
Holding fast to Neige's hand, Deviluke threw them both into the split in space.
The dimension twisted wrong. For a moment nausea surged up Neige's throat and she nearly vomited, but she choked it down.
And just like that, they were somewhere else entirely. What looked like an abandoned, long-derelict bar.
"…Teleportation?"
Teleport, blink, warp — every version she'd ever seen in fiction flashed through Neige's mind. Only now did her legs finally give out, and she crumpled to the floor where she stood.
"Haah… haah…. Ha…! My body's… so hot. Nngh…, what the hell is happening…."
Shaking her head, Neige screwed her eyes shut. She could not collapse here. She raised her head and forced her buckling legs beneath her.
"Deviluke is so happy. Our Master is waiting to meet you."
"Your Master…? What is that supposed to mean?"
Where Deviluke pointed, someone sat before a long, straight table. A masked man lazily twirling a glass in his hand, gazing down at this place….
A man who looked, to anyone's eyes, like the very picture of a scheming villain.
"I've been longing for this meeting, Magical Girl Neige."
"And you are…?"
"If we must be formal about it…."
He tilted his mask up slightly and took a sip of what was in his glass.
"Vendetta Benelov. Your enemy."