Chương 99: 068 – Futari Wa…

"Hey, we're on a time out!" Night Raider declared accusingly, crouching behind her vennplate shield to reduce her target profile.

"The nice aliens and I were talking!"

"Namine said she was okay with a time out," Princess Megumi said." I never said anything! Now give me back that crown, Phantom Thief! It doesn't belong to you!" Despite all the advanced and dangerous weaponry the Kaedekin had been using, despite the magic they seemed to use so casually making any fight significantly more dangerous than anything she'd ever encountered, Loren couldn't help but get the feeling she was in the middle of a playground scuffle between children. Heavily armed children.

Who talks about time outs?

"Oh, you mean this?" Night Raider said, waving the crown with one hand." This crown? The one Princess Anya made? The one passed down from princess to princess through the centuries?" Loren finally managed to get a good look at the thing now that Night Raider was holding it steady. It wasn't the delicate-looking spindly things most beauty contest winners got, or the over-decorated helmets a few of the European nations and corporations still used for ceremonial purposes and kept adding to every century or so.

The crown was a ring of metal with a mirror-like shine and a visible pink tinge—because of course—engraved with designs Loren couldn't quite make out. Points shaped like tongues of fire rose around the crown, with both engraving and what looked like heat coloring to make the tongues look real. A round gem of some kind was embedded onto the ring, probably to be positioned over the wearer's forehead.

She couldn't help but think it would make the wearer look like they're wearing a gas stove on their head, and resolved to never say it out loud.

"Yes, that crown!" Megumi said angrily as more and more Kaedekin began to land, their rocket flames stirring the ground.

"Give it back! Now!"

"I don't think I should, given where I found it," Night Raider said, her voice echoing loudly as her lips curved into a vicious smile and wow that was an expression she'd never imagined seeing on a Kaedekin.

"Why did I find this hanging on your bathroom faucet?" For a moment, there was dead silence, broken only by the sounds of new Pyrotheurgists landing. Then every Kaedekin turned to stare at Megumi.

"On the bathroom faucet, sis?" one of the Kaedekin standing near the college's princess said.

"Really?"

"It's not what it sounds like!" Megumi protested, looking embarrassed.

"I was just trying it on when I heard that our guests had arrive, so I put it down in a hurry!"

"On the bathroom faucet?" another one repeated.

"With a sink counter that big, you put it on the faucet?"

"I don't think she's cleaned this in a while, either," Night Raider said, looking critically at the crown in her hands.

"The chrome is covered in water marks and stains… and there's hair stuck on one of the points! And it's definitely not her hair, it's blue. Has no one cleaned this since the last princess? Oh, wait, there's two different kinds of orange hair and a green hair too. Has anyone actually been properly maintaining this? It kinda smells like burnt hair."

Loren felt a moment's envy at being able to just give yourself a burn bath, but the feeling quickly faded as she realized how sloppily someone had to burn themselves clean to come out with their head smelling like burnt hair.

"Megumi, if you're going to skip bathing, at least clean the crown with you!"

"See, this is why we keep telling you to only wear it for events, you don't take care of it properly!"

"Look, it's the first thing you're told when you get the crown!" Megumi protested.

"Don't set it on fire, because the colors on the heat coloring will change, and l really don't want to have to fix it! And can we focus on getting it back from the Phantom Thief first?" Said Phantom Thief had been sidling closer to the dome protecting the air tanks, and was now casually leaning on it with the crown in her hands.

"Hmm? Oh, you mean me?" She actually pointed at herself, which was likely purely performative… well, 50% chance it was performative, it was hard to tell with Kaedekin.

"Of course I mean you!" Princess Megumi said.

"You do see any other thieving Phantom Thieves here?" Night Raider looked around, which was definitely performative.

"No, but that doesn't mean anything. It's not like I know all the other Phantom Thieves on the planet. One of them might be here and I wouldn't know."

"There aren't any other Phantom Thieves on the planet!" Megumi shot back.

"That we know of," Night Raider said cheerfully. Megumi angrily opened her mouth, then paused.

"All right, you technically have a point, but you're still the Phantom Thief I'm talking about! So can you just give me back my crown already? We both know how this turns out." Night Raider looked amused.

"I get away using my cunning plan that perfectly takes advantage of your oversights and you're left here screaming my name and shaking your fist at me?"

"That only happened twice! Phantom Thieves get caught too!"

"Not by Magical Girls," Night Raider said with the kind of confidence that was irritating, and it wasn't even being directed at Loren.

"And last I heard, there wasn't anyone on the planet worthy of the title Meitantei." Oh, the political and sociological analysts would be eating good when they got back and handed over the record of this interaction. While they had never assumed that the Kaedekin were some kind of cultural monolith—despite their own claims to the contrary—this was the first indication they'd seen of some kind of ideological disagreement.

While it wasn't really Loren's field, her familiarity with corporate politics gave her an ear for the subject. Which didn't mean that Night Raider wasn't a criminal and she'd readily admitted to stealing cultural artifacts, but this sounded like an ideological clash rather than a legally motivated one, never mind the Kaedekin by their own admission had no laws to break.

Barring the possibility that they'd lied about that—and it would be an insane thing to lie about, but given how insane-sounding the Kaedekin were about a lot of things, not outside of the realm of possibility—there was a very common way someone could be declared a criminal without actually breaking any laws: by being someone who's part of a discriminated group. … The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Well, not Loren's problem.

"Well… so what!" Princess Megumi said.

"We can still defeat you with the power of friendship!"

"Your friends who've been looking very disapproving at how shabbily you've been treating your crown of office?" Night Raider said, still smiling. For the first time, she broke eye contact with Princess Megumi, letting her gaze rove to the Kaedekin Pyrotheurgists who had been steadily arriving and landing in a large ring around them, with the dome of air tanks and Night Raider at its center.

Loren could feel heat on her soul from all sides as magic was drawn to form spells, though she couldn't tell what they were without metaphorically poking them with a finger, and that would be… well, rude and stupid. Still, she'd have bet her next paycheck—corporate, not navy—that the pseudo-vampire spells were being burned right now.

"She's still our friend, even if she is terrible at proper jewelry care!" someone called out, to a roar of affirmation. Megumi smiled.

"Girls…!"

"That's right! Even if she's so childish she can only drink ethanol mixed into something sweet, we'd still side with her over you, thief!"

"Yeah! So what if she eats so much leadberry it would kill a normal girl! She's our friend, unhealthy eating habits and all!"

"Who cares if it's been years since she's submitted any new research for review! We like her anyway!" More support(?) for Megumi rang out even as the princess of the College began to look more and more like her patience was being shaved layer by layer. Loren wasn't sure if the Kaedekin were being snide—they sounded as sincere as Kaedekin always did, even this apparently criminal one—or if they genuinely considered this being supportive. Still, for the first time she was willing to bet it might be the former.

After all, it's still friendship to occasionally roast your friend, right? Still, the sight of a mob being willing to gang up on her to get their friend's crown back didn't seem to faze Night Raider, who casually slipped her arm through the crown and let it rest at her elbow like the strap of a purse as she made a show—or possibly did so sincerely—of applauding all the support that Megumi was getting.

"Ah, it's always wonderful to see such sisterly love and friendship," she said, and there was that sincerity again. Were the Kaedekin just really good a faking it? She couldn't possibly have meant that seriously, right?

"How can anyone not be impressed?" She paused, tilting her head.

"Well, like this: I'm not impressed."

"Look, just surrender, thief!" someone said.

"Because otherwise this is just going to be… bullying." Every Kaedekin in sight made an expression of distaste at the word.

"Ah, well, if it's going to be bullying, then maybe you should do the right thing and not do it?" Night Raider said with a wide, bright smile what was clearly mocki— Loren paused, then narrowed her eyes, trying to see better. No, that wasn't a mocking smile. The woman was terrified. Terrified, and trying to buy as much time as she could before the inevitable end, because more and more Pyrotheurgists were still arriving.

Their presence was become an encompassing, brilliant heat against her soul, as if she was standing in the middle of a forest fire. With this many together, she was pretty sure even the normies and aliens were feeling it, a heat that was all in their head and made them feel they should be sweating despite their suit's environmental controls. It was one of the things she'd never encountered before now, only heard about when one of the old monsters had deigned to talk about it.

Even during family reunions with the old monsters present, there weren't so many people together that the normies in the family could feel it. Here, with a crowd of hundreds of Flames that continued to grow as everyone in the college arrived… Yeah, the normies would be feeling that phantom heat on flesh that would actually be perfectly cool. And if Night Raider knew anything about Flames, enough to recognize that phantom heat, then she'd know that it would take little to make those flames very, very real.

"Maybe you should do the right thing and just give that back," Princess Megumi retorted.

"You know I can't do that," Night Raider said. She straightened her arm casually, letting the crown fall from her elbow, and as it fell white surrounded it. By the time it reached the woman's hand, it was a cookie-like circular blob once more that she casually adhered to her back, under her cape. With a casualness that was definitely feigned, the woman began stretching, like she was warming up for some athletics.

"Then I guess we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way," Megumi said, raising one hand. A ball of flame burned to life above it, bright yellow and orange. All around them, every other Pyrotheurgist does the same, and if she hadn't been in her suit, Loren knew the metaphorical heat on her soul would become the very real heat of all those open flames radiating together.

"Last chance. Surrender, otherwise you might need to visit Trauma Medicine Research." Night Raider laced her fingers together, palm-out, and stretched, raising her hands over her head before letting go and having them stand ready at her side. Her cape was gusting now, spreading open dramatically in a way no wind would have ever caused, not that there was one.

"If you want my prize, you'll need to take it from me. It's tradition, after all."

"Hey, Night Raider," Namine called out. The woman turned towards her, head tilting to the side.

"Time out's over," their host said with a smile, pointing a finger gun at her. The Kaedekin around Loren had never lowered their weapons, but the mood seemed to shift and imply they'd raised them again, though they didn't start firing. The bunker's Kaedekin didn't have a clear line on Nightraider, but it wouldn't take much to herd the woman into their line of fire. The surrounding Pyrotheurgist Kaedekin had made the bunker part of their circle, and if they were smart, they wouldn't block those lines.

For a moment, no one moved, Loren and the excursion party forgotten save for someone whispering what was happening to the pajhadin. Then a deluge water fell out of the black sky, and every flame in sight winked out as the women holding them were knocked to the ground by the unexpected force of what had to be several swimming pools worth of the vile dihydrogen monoxide. Loren recoiled out of instinct, and she wasn't the only one.

Others reared back in surprise as water splashed through the bunker's gunholes, causing the Kaedekin aiming through them to flinch away. The Kaedekin on top of the bunker were completely soaked, the force of the water dropped literally on their heads knocking them off balance and causing them to slip on the suddenly wet vennplate underneath them. In the center of all this, Night Raider had jumped in surprise as the water splashed over her feet, but she didn't lose her balance.

From the way her mouth had parted open, she'd been as surprised as anyone else. Then a white figure landed on the wet ground in front of Night Raider. It moved with an airy grace, like a badly done CGI character with no weight to it, except it hit the ground with an audible impact and the splash of water. As thoroughly wet Kaedekin pushed the wet hair out of their eyes to try and see, the figure rose to its feet. It was…

well, it was dressed in what Loren could only describe as a white ninja costume: baggy sleeves and pants that had been secured tight around the forearms and lower legs, an overlapping neckline, a masked face covered by a hood, a long white scarf trailing down from their neck… yup, definitely a ninja.

"What," Night Raider said flatly.

"Sorry I'm late, big sis," a slightly muffled and electronically distorted but definitely Kaedekin voice emerged from the white ninja.

"I had to make a stop." Night Raider seemed to recognize something, because she recoiled slightly at the words.

"What are you doing here? -! This wasn't part of the plan!"

"I know. Sorry. But I couldn't take seeing you have to do this by yourself anymore. Especially since…" The ninja jerked their head, then snapped it towards the bunker. One arm came up, which was very misleading, because suddenly snow dropped down from a clear blue… well, a clear black sky, blocking off the gun ports on the bunker and consequently a large chunk of Loren's view in the direction of the two in white.

Fortunately, the loss of the second wasn't much of an impediment, because the white ninja spoke loudly enough to still be heard.

"I'm sorry for this misunderstanding. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Dark Magical Girl Phantom Thief Night Raider. I was the one who stole the statue of Nikaede, and Stardancer's knives. The one you want… is me!" There was a sigh.

"Ah, little sisters. Even when doing evil stuff, their sense of justice is so adorable. Then let me properly re -introduce myself. I am, in truth, Dark Magical Girl Phantom Thief Mele Mystery!" There was a pause. Then four voices rose together."" And we are… The Court of Lost Stars!"" Loren didn't know what was happening anymore.