“Senpai!”
Azusa turned to see a panting Aoi, her second-year teammate having sprinted to catch up with her after she had left their shrine home base after their latest battle. Well, former-teammate. Her school uniform reminded Azusa, dressed casually for college, that she would never wear it herself again, not that she minded. As a hulking six and a half foot tall amazoness with more muscles than the boys’ wrestling club put together, Azusa had come to believe for better or worse that she didn’t pull off feminine things very well anymore.
“So much for my quiet getaway.” Azusa sighed. “Can you blame me for not being stealthy though? And you don’t need to call me that anymore now that I’ve graduated.”
“Why are you quitting!?” Aoi ignored her, attempting to hide the red around her eyes with a harsh, accusing gaze.
“Hotaru let the cat out of the bag, huh?” Azusa played it off casually, running a hand through her short red hair. “She couldn’t have waited ten minutes? I thought she was smarter than that.”
“I want an answer!” Aoi demanded. “Am I doing something wrong? The last few battles have gone perfectly, your own performance included! You’re practically at your peak! So why are you quitting!?”
“Calm down, it has nothing to do with performance or any of that stuff.” Azusa said casually, refusing to indulge Aoi’s anger. “I’m just getting a little old for a magical girl, don’t you think? I’m in college now, I don’t really fit in with the youngsters anymore.”
“Too old?” Aoi seemed taken aback by the concept. “Why would you be too old? Plenty of magical girls have been active well into their twenties? Sure, it was usually because they were made older by transformations, but still…”
“Exactly. They usually retire before the year is out after that point anyway.” Azusa pointed out. “But me, I’m getting older the old-fashioned way, and all I ever got from those monsters were these muscles. Whoever heard of a magical girl out of high school anyway?”
“You can’t seriously expect me to accept this.” Aoi said, her fists clenched. “What are we supposed to do without our leader?”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine, you’re the oldest once I’m gone. Besides, you and Hotaru had your eye on that tomboy from the kendo club, right?” Azusa smiled. “She’s red material if I’ve ever seen it. As long as there’s somebody to pick up where I left off it’ll be fine-”
“It’s not fine!” Aoi nearly yelled at the amazonian woman almost a head taller than her.
“Moving on is a part of every magical girl’s life.” Azusa remained calm. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“Well I won’t!” Aoi insisted. “No matter how old I get, I won’t give up and quit just because of that! I promise!”
--
“Hey, Aoi! Aoi! You okay?”
Aoi was jolted back to attention by Momoko’s face filling her vision, having totally tuned out of whatever the two were doing, to the point that it took her a second to remember that the two were patrolling the city together after school.
“Oh, sorry, I was just thinking about something.” Aoi apologised, having been lost in memories.
“Thinking about exams?” Momoko guessed. “Personally I prefer not to. I don’t even want to think about how much studying I’m gonna have to do when I’m a third year like you!”
Momoko shuddered as Aoi smiled. The two of them called what they were doing a patrol, but it was more like spending time together wandering about doing this and that while they waited for any signs or reports of monster attacks around this time of the week.
“You don’t have to worry though!” Momoko declared proudly. “If any monsters attack while you’re studying for exams, I’ll cover for you! The monsters, I mean, not your studying.”
“I’d prefer you didn’t.” Aoi deflated her a little. “Exams or not, my duties as a magical girl come first. What would I do if something happened to one of you because I wasn’t there when I could have been?”
“But still, you’ve gotta think about the future, right?” Momoko said surprisingly thoughtfully. “Saving everybody’s a good thing, but you’ve gotta save yourself as well, right?”
“What brought this up?” Aoi was somewhat shocked, having pegged Momoko as somebody who didn’t think further ahead than what she was going to do next weekend. Genuinely good advice wasn’t really in her wheelhouse.
“Well, my mom’s been bugging me about my future career plans and stuff.” Momoko explained. “And I said I hadn’t figured it out yet, and she said that I don’t have to worry about living my life after exams because if I don’t pass them, then she’s gonna make life not worth living for me.”
Aoi laughed, Momoko looking like this was not a laughing matter at all.
“Well, what do you think you want to be?” Aoi asked.
“Well, my mom’s a nurse, but I don’t really think I’d want to be one.” Momoko said. “And it’s not really the type of job I can run out on if there’s a monster attack…”
“You think you’ll still be a magical girl at that point?” Aoi was surprised.
“Obviously.” Momoko said without any hesitation. “As long as I can, anyway. But you’ve made it this long and you haven’t been changed at all, so I’m sure I’ll be fine!”
Momoko smiled confidently for a second, then caught herself.
“Oh, right, except for that one.” Momoko was reminded of the jiggle of her big butt and how far out Aoi’s skirt was being pushed right now. She tried to not focus on it too much, it was hard to keep her eyes off of Yui’s with how big she was these days. “Still, I’m really impressed that it was your first time!”
“Well, it wasn’t quite my first time. There was one other one, back before Hotaru and Akari joined the team.” Aoi said nostalgically.
“Really? What happened?” Momoko was intensely curious. “What’d it do to you? You look totally normal to me! Well, I guess I wouldn’t be able to tell, since it happened before I became a magical girl, but still!”
“Well…” Aoi explained. “It wasn’t really a big one. I got hit by a miniskirt monster, and it just shrank my uniform’s skirt a few inches.”
“But your skirt length is the same as ours.” Momoko pointed out.
“Well, usually the average magical girl’s skirt is a bit longer, but when you form your first outfit it tends to be influenced by whoever you’ve seen before, and you and the others saw me transformed before you transformed the first time, so…”
Momoko gasped. “Is that why we’re all wearing miniskirts compared to the old teams? I thought that was just a modern magical girl thing!”
“Sorry!” Aoi apologised with an irresponsible smile. “But it looks good, doesn’t it?”
Suddenly, a faraway boom rattled through the nearby storefront windows, and the magical girls instinctively looked to the horizon, where a plume of black smoke was already rising into the air.
“That, however,” Aoi said with a sigh, “doesn’t look good at all.”
----
“Tremble, puny humans!” Cried the voice of Tokyo’s latest monster, strangely coming off with the cadence and inflection of a mother telling a disobedient child to take out the trash. Two large breasts with thick, dripping nipples hung off of its chest and sat cradled in either of the monster’s deceptively human-like arms, which the monster was pointing at cars and pedestrians alike before letting out mighty sprays of white. An unnaturally-wide smile filled with sharp, spiky teeth was the only thing that ruined the visage of an otherwise June Cleaver-esque face, bouncy golden locks framing a venomous expression that took in the scene of chaos in front of it with unfettered glee. “Don’t be afraid, just remember, mommy knows best!”
Taking another step forward on one of her four multi-jointed, spider-like legs, she planted one of her three-toed claws into the hood of a nearby car, stopping the vehicle in its tracks and sending the salaryman inside jerking in his seat. With a quick swipe of the monster’s left breast, a stream of focused, pressurized white liquid shot out, shearing the top of the car clean off, before the monster kicked the top aside to tumble against a nearby mailbox, leaving the man inside quivering in fear.
“Aw, don’t be afraid, little human. I think you’ll find that motherhood is very fulfilling!” The monster cackled. But just as she levied her right breast at the man, a sudden whirring filled the air, and a familiar blue rod slammed into the side of the aiming breast, causing the shot to go wide.
“Who dares to interrupt my sacred crusade of motherhood?!” The monster practically screamed out, her slit-eyed pupils scanning the street as the salaryman got the hint, tumbling over the side of his car door before making a break for it into a nearby alley.
“You might say mothering, but all I see is smothering!” Kaleidoscope Blue called out from on top of a nearby lamppost, extending her hand out to the side to catch her spinning rod as it ricocheted back to her, before striking a dramatic pose.
“Yeah, and your milk is… curdled!” Kaleidoscope Pink cried out from the top of a lamppost on the other side of the street, before deflating slightly and turning to Blue apologetically. “I’m sorry Blue, yours was really good, and I couldn’t think of a follow-up.”
“Don’t worry girlie,” The monster said, its smile rekindling itself as it hoisted its breast weapons towards the two girls, “you’ll have plenty more insights into motherhood once I turn you from magical girls into magical women!” With that, the monster launched yet another blast of highly-pressurized milk, though to the confusion of the two girls, it didn’t seem to be aimed anywhere near them.
“I think your eyes are going in your old age, mommy dearest—” Aoi began, before jerking and flailing about as the lamppost that she had been perched on began to sag.
The top of the lamppost began to slide off the bottom from where the monster’s stream had cut through it, and Aoi found her footing helplessly taken away as she was sudden falling through the air. She was hyper-aware as the monster aimed its other nipple in her direction, and fired—
—only for Aoi to feel a sudden jerk at her shoulder, as Momoko used the momentum from her own leap to grab onto her arm and carry Blue away on a trajectory to safety. The stream that had been meant for Blue sailed harmlessly on past, zeroing in on an arguing mother and daughter.
“Stop trying to film this fight right this minute young lady, or you are grounded!”
“Whatever, mom, you think that you can tell me what to do just because you’re older than me!”
“That’s right! And as long as that’s true, you have to—”
At that moment, the daughter was enveloped by a wave of white, sprayed milk, that soaked both her phone and her clothes through—until seeming to soak into her very being, leaving both her clothes and her phone untouched as she began to swell upwards and outwards. Teenage hips expanded into a plump bottom, developing breasts surged up and out, and her face matured, refined, and sculpted itself into something that very much resembled her mother.
After a moment of this, the newly-minted sisters stared at each other for a long, confused second, before the former daughter triumphantly pointed her finger in her mother’s direction. “Ha!”
Momoko’s momentum took her to the wall of a nearby building with Aoi in tow, which she promptly rebounded off of, leaving a small crater in the wall in her wake. As they pulled up a little higher over the monster, Momoko tightened her grip on Aoi’s hand, and began to spin in place. “Kaleidoscope—”
“—Launch!” Aoi finished, as Momoko successfully hurled her down through the air at their target like a blue, frilly lightning bolt. Aoi made contact with the monster with her foot sticking straight out, the force of the blow nearly causing the monster’s eyes to bug out of its skull as it was knocked off of all four of its feet and into the air. It bounced off of the pavement once, twice, before crashing through the glass automatic doors of a nearby gym, the abused and crinkled doors settling to either side of the monster like the discarded wings of a dragonfly.
“Hurry, let’s finish it off! Before it… escapes.” Momoko finished dejectedly, stopping in the gym’s lobby alongside Aoi to find it empty, aside from splatters of milk leading further into the building.
“We’ll have to split up.” Aoi said, turning to Momoko with a nod. “Evacuate everyone you can, and call for help if you find the creature. All of the people in here are basically sitting ducks.”
“Got it!” Momoko said with a salute, before both magical girls took off in opposite directions.
It wasn’t long before Momoko kicked open the door to an exercise room, and almost crumpled to her knees in despair. “Oh my god, I’m… I’m so sorry! It managed to get you all!”
The women’s yoga class just shared an uneasy glance, not quite sure how exactly to explain the situation to the magical protector who was nearly in tears.
----
“Everyone get out! Monster attack!” Aoi cried out, before moving to the next door along the second floor, kicking it open, and repeating herself. From what she could see of the first floor from past the railing, most of the denizens in the exercise pit had already heeded her warning and headed for the exits, though she imagined that someone in the gym’s management was still going to leave them a nasty message on their social media pages.
You just can’t please everybody… Aoi thought with a sigh, before kicking the latest door open. “Everyone, get out! Monster—” The next words choked in her throat, as the inhabitants of the workout room turned to face her, most in mid-curl or lift, with just one bearing a very familiar stature and head of red hair.
Aoi and Azusa stared at one another for a long, shocked moment, before the muscled former magical girl seemed to get her bearings and turn to the rest of the room, which Aoi suddenly realized were all wearing clothing from the same college. “You heard the girl, monster’s on the loose! I know this isn’t any of your first monster emergency! Let’s move, move, move!”
Aoi couldn’t help but smile as that same attitude that had saved them so many times as a magical girl squad came to the fore, and Azusa’s teammates quickly followed suit in putting down their equipment and hustling towards the door.
“You still got it, huh Blue?” Azusa murmured to Aoi, as she moved past the magical girl towards the room’s exit.
“I could say the same to you. Red.” Aoi said as they stepped out into the hallway, putting a playful emphasis on the last word that still managed to come off as wistful.
“What’s this? Barely a curve in sight! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group more in need of a dose of motherhood!”
Aoi’s eyes widened, and before Azusa could react, the far-shorter magical girl had a grip around Azusa’s waist, before leaping off the ground and clearing them both out of the way of a fresh spray of milk.
“My girls!” Azusa cried out, as the downwards arc gave her just enough view of the spot they just left to see two of her team soak the milk into themselves, losing their hard-earned muscles in place of soft, motherly curves.
Aoi didn’t reply, just landed in a crouch down next to the exercise machines and free weights. Hefting her rod, she glanced back up at the balcony-esque walkway on the second floor, measured out the angle, and let loose with her rod in a spinning arc.
“Now it’s time for the rest of you to learn the joys that only motherhood can bring you!” The creature said, even as Aoi’s rod bounced off of the ceiling above the monster, spiked off of the wall next to the monster, and collided with the monster’s flank, driving it sideways into—and then over—the metal railing separating it from the first floor of the gym below.
The creature let out a mighty yell as it fell, which was then silenced as it crumpled into the exercise pit, leaving Aoi hopeful that gravity had done her job for her. But as her rod began its journey back to Aoi’s hand, another stream of milk lanced through the air, severing the rod in two before the weapon disintegrated into fine, blue sparkles.
Aoi grimaced faintly as she set down Azusa next to her, before adopting a combat-ready position—only to notice Azusa doing the same next to her.
“You should get out of here.” Aoi stated under her breath as the monster collected itself, wiping a stray dumbbell off of its shoulder as though it were a spare bit of wrapping paper. “You’re retired, remember?”
“I’m never too retired to save your butt.” Azusa replied with confidence, though Aoi could detect a shaky undertone. “Which, if I’m not mistaken, looks a little bit bigger than normal, doesn’t it?”
“Shut up.” Aoi replied, though she couldn’t help but crack a smile at the barb. “If you really want to help, go left while I go right, and we’ll divide its attention.”
“Just like old times?”
“Just like old times.”
The two girls braced themselves as the monster’s four-legged gait drew it closer, prepared to bolt in opposite directions—
—before Momoko came sailing in like a bolt out of the blue, planting both of her feet into the side of the monster’s many-toothed face. The monster was lifted off of its feet once more, before crashing some distance away in the gym’s abandoned juice bar, one of the monster’s spider-like legs sticking up into the air and twitching as it lay prone.
“Good thing I never skip leg day!” Momoko said as she came up to standing with her hands on her hips, before turning to the other two. “Are you okay, Blue and—um, citizen?”
“It’s okay Pink, she’s one of us.” Aoi said, glancing up at her senpai as she said so, before turning away with a light flush. “Formerly, anyway.”
“The name’s Azusa, nice to meet you.” Azusa said, reaching her hand out for a shake. “That was quite a kick, I have to say. Back in the day, I was—”
“Oh! Oh! Kaleidoscope Red, right?! I remember you! You didn’t look the same, obviously, but you had all of those muscles, and whenever reporters asked you how you got so strong, you always said something like, ‘eat your fruits and vegetables kids!’ Which meant that parents thought that you were a good influence, so they always bought up your figurines for their kids, which made it really really hard to find any online, so I had to negotiate with a bunch of seven-year-olds on eBay for like a bazillion hours before I could get just one of the limited-edition bicep flexing figurines with real flex detail! It’s one of the stars of my collection!”
Azusa stared at Momoko for the length of three blinks, before leaning over to Aoi with a murmur. “Is she always like this?”
Aoi just sighed, but then smiled. “Yes, but, you get used to it.”
“Do you still do autographs? I mean, no one else would believe it was real, but it would mean a lot to me…” Momoko said, as she took Azusa’s hands in hers, and began to prattle on excitedly.
Aoi couldn’t help but look at the spectacle with a soft smile, seeing her old teammate interact with her new team, and the team’s newest member to boot. But that smile gradually faded, as the words from so long ago began to ring in her head.
“Moving on is a part of every magical girl’s life. You’ll understand when you’re older.”
Azusa must’ve been just as excited about being a magical girl as Momoko, at some point. What changed? Is it really just about getting older, more mature? Will it happen to Momoko one day too?
Pretty soon, is it going to happen… to me?
These thoughts and more suddenly came to a screeching halt, as Aoi picked up the shifting of rubble.
Her head whipped around to the juice bar, but it was already almost too late; the monster had its breast aimed at Azusa and Momoko, and neither one was paying enough attention to dodge.
Things seemed to slow down. There was a brief moment of reflection, on her storied career up until this moment, and how she’d gone so long without a change. She wondered if fate expected that she would just stand back, and let two generations of her teammates go down at once.
Fat chance.
Aoi practically appeared in-between Azusa and Momoko, cocked her arms back, and pushed them in opposite directions, sending both of them hurling off of their feet while she remained stationary, no time to move.
A moment later, the blast of milk hit Aoi full-on.
Aoi tumbled and rolled across the exercise mats for a good few feet from the force of the blow, her limbs feeling limp and uncoordinated under her. She finally came to a soaking stop, bracing her hands and knees underneath her as she pulled herself up, and was able to watch for herself as the milk pulled into her.
Aoi felt her entire form buzz as everything about her became… more. Her legs lengthened underneath her, becoming tight, fit, and toned, going on for ages into blue boots that gained a slight kitten heel of a few inches. The girlish frills of her outfit thinned out into a more mature lace, particularly about her hips, where lace accents and fringes alike brought attention to how her hips widened and her bottom thickened behind her, filling out into a ripe, succulent peach, impressing even by her pre-enhanced standards. The changes rolled up the tight, toned core of her stomach, to where she felt a pleasant welling, an overwhelming warmth in her chest that was precipitated by the growth of the boon every teenage girl dreamed of—bouncy, round, protruding, boobs, that extended well forwards off of her matronly frame. Her outfit struggled to keep up as additional spots of lace cropped up, including spreading over the top of a tasteful but very present cleavage window. Aoi finally came to her feet as the buzzing exploded across her face, sculpting her youthful features into a mature edge that was very recognizable as Aoi, if she had been aged like a fine wine.
Momoko and Azusa watched this spectacle with open-mouthed shock, even as the monster pulled itself from the juice bar’s rubble with a too-wide grin.
“Well now, dearie, have we finally come to our senses? The warm embrace of motherhood, mmm, it feels so good, doesn’t it?” The monster aimed its weapon once more at Momoko and Azusa. “Like something that we should share with your friends.”
“No.” Came the response, the voice clear and crystal as a rung bell, free of all of teenage Aoi’s former insecurities. The three watched as the new Aoi visibly gathered herself, acclimating to her new proportions with record swiftness, followed by strutting each of her lengthy legs in-between her friends and the aiming monster. “That is to say, that you’re right, motherhood does feel divine. But these two right here, they are like my children. And if you think a mother will let anything happen to their children—” Aoi’s eyes flashed, and her hand swept out to her side. “—then you barely have the right to call yourself a mother at all—!”
In an explosion of blue light, Aoi’s weapon appeared; longer than her old rod, to keep in proportion to her frame, and decorated along the length with slight touches in keeping with its more mature owner.
“You’ll regret ever questioning my motherhood!” The creature shrieked, firing off a blast of highly-pressurized, cutting milk in Aoi’s direction.
“You’ll regret ever showing up in my city!” Aoi called back, before pointing the tip of her refurbished weapon at the incoming stream, and unleashing from its tip a sparking, whirring burst of energy that collided with the stream of milk mid-air.
The feet of both the monster and the magical woman pressed into the floor as their respective energies fought for dominance, either beam briefly gaining on the other before being pushed back in fits and spurts that left the onlookers dazzled.
Momoko started, as Azusa’s hand alighted on her shoulder. “You know, the hammer-toss is one of my best events…”
Momoko just stared back at Azusa, uncomprehending, before the lightbulb finally went off behind her eyes. Smiling and nodding, she clasped onto Azusa’s forearm, who clasped onto hers in turn.
“Kaleidoscope—” Azusa began, twisting in place in preparation of hurling the much-smaller girl.
“—launch!” Momoko finished, as Azusa spun and hurled her through the air, leading her on a slower, more leisurely, but no less effective trajectory towards the monster’s face.
With her feet planted firmly in the monster’s face once more, Momoko made sure to push off in a leap back towards her friends, even as the monster’s pressurized stream sputtered and stopped once its attention waned. Aoi’s bolt of blue energy quickly caught up to the monster, impacting straight between its breasts, and leaving a charred hole that continued on through to the other side.
“Wait til your father… hears about this…” The monster groaned out, just as Momoko landed next to her friends, they all struck a pose, and the beast exploded behind them.
“Wow.” Azusa said, reaching up to scratch the back of her head. “I have to admit, it’s been awhile since I’ve felt a rush like that.”
“Tell you what!” Momoko said with a nod. “Our teamwork was off the charts. If you’d never retired, our team would’ve been unstoppable!”
“It was definitely very exciting.” Aoi said, briefly brushing herself off before bringing her hand up to her mouth and letting out a matronly titter. “Why, I can’t wait to tell my husband!”
Azusa and Momoko immediately stopped their celebrating and shared a look.
“Uh, Aoi?” Momoko hesitantly ventured. “Maybe we should get you back to the base…”
----
“I knew it. I knew that this was going to happen!” Yui exclaimed, threading her fingers around the base of her bunny ears in despair. “If you keep acting like a mom long enough, one day the universe is just going to make it happen! It’s basic science!”
“Now now, enough of that young lady, I’m not that different.” The new, matronly Aoi consoled Yui, as they all sat around a table at their home base, before Aoi’s brow furrowed, as though something had just occurred to her. “Though, I do want to have a chat with you sometime about those friends you keep company with, I think that they’re being a bad influence on you.”
“Oh. My. God! It’s like I never left my house!”
“Quit your whining Yui, we’re all missing the bigger picture here!” Akari said, before leaning forwards on the table excitedly, stars sparkling in her eyes. “Momoko told me that you’re married! What was it like? How many bridesmaids did you have? Did it meet every fantasy that you’ve ever had about ever getting married ever?!”
“Calm down for a moment, and I’ll tell you.” Aoi said with a soft series of chuckles, before leaning forwards conspiratorially, bunching her new boobs up underneath her. The school uniform she had been wearing before being transformed was long gone, replaced with a tight ribbed sweater and what could only be described as mom jeans. “But first, I have to start with when we first met…”
The others continued talking as Aoi began to recount the story of how she had first met her future husband starting with him helping her get home after an after-work drinking party, and to anybody not as lovesick as Akari, it soon became apparent that despite Aoi choosing her words suspiciously carefully, it sounded an awful lot like an inappropriate office romance with a younger subordinate that had ended in her quitting to avoid a scandal.
“Amazing how this place looks almost the same.” Azusa said, looking about the space in mild wonder, sitting a bit further down the table than the others. “I guess I thought one of you might’ve been hit by a redecorator monster or something, by now.”
“It’s actually a lot cleaner than it used to be, ever since one of our other team members got turned into a maid.” Momoko said with a nod, sitting across from Azusa. “But, yeah, Aoi doesn’t like to decorate much, in case we ever have to abandon this place in a hurry. She’s pretty practical like that.”
“That she is.” Azusa said, looking on as Aoi went on about her great love experience, Akari looking as though the secrets of the universe were being explained to her. When Asuza looked back, she found that Momoko was looking at her with much the same expression, leaning dangerously forwards in her seat.
“You know, ever since Akari got zapped, she’s technically not Kaleidoscope Red anymore. You could come back! You’d be lots stronger now that you’re older, and we could really use someone with all of your experience!”
“It doesn’t really work like that.” Asuza said with a chuckle, before looking into the middle-distance wistfully. “Besides, her not having her name anymore is a pretty good encapsulation of why I left…”
“Very well,” Sakura said at last, pushing her dainty, manicured hands gently against the table to come up to standing, “as Aoi is the one who has fallen under the monster’s spell this day, it is only fair that the next most magnificent member of the team be the one to question her.”
“What she said.” Kuroko said with a nod, though her expression suggested that she might not have been too broken up about getting to turn the tables and asking their leader the invasive questions for a change.
“If you insist.” Aoi said over Akari’s whine as she interrupted her story, coming smoothly to her feet. Azusa was struck, suddenly, by how much taller she was than everyone else in the room. It seemed that the concept that adults were taller than teenagers had truly been taken to heart when she had been zapped. Azusa mused, as Aoi stood before the twin inquisitors of Sakura and Kuroko.
“For the sake of the format, we’ll start at the top. Your grade is…”
“Oh now, a lady as refined as you should know better than to ask a woman her age.” Aoi replied easily, unphased by Sakura’s line of questioning.
“You’re in the…”
“Prime of my life.”
“You have a passion for…”
“Home, hearth, and husband. No kids though, if you’re wondering. Maybe someday, though~.”
“Alright, let’s cut to the chase.” Kuroko said, abruptly stepping in. “In this reality, what’s your excuse for hanging out with a bunch of teenagers?”
“Yeah, it’s not like you’re in high school anymore.” Akari stated the obvious. “No offense, but going out for ice cream with you is going to be a lot weirder now.”
“Don’t be so quick to assume.” Aoi said with a knowing smile. “I’m not in high school anymore, but I’m certainly in your high school. In fact, we speak fairly regularly.”
“What, do you dress up like you’re sixteen and sneak in?” Yui scoffed. “Why don’t you stop being cryptic and just tell us that…”
Yui trailed off as her new set of retroactive memories began to set in, triggered by Aoi’s words.
“Oh my god.” Yui groaned. “You’re that guidance counselor who keeps nagging me all the time?”
“Correct.” Aoi said smugly. “I needed something to do after I quit my job, after all. What better way to spend my time than to help ensure the futures of promising girls like you?”
“Great! So we can still meet you after, or I guess during school?” Momoko was much more enthusiastic about having her friend close at hand than Yui now was.
“You might give everybody the wrong idea if you’re always meeting me in the middle of school, but yes.” Aoi said. “But perhaps it won’t be as much of a problem as I think! After all, I’m quite in touch with the youth of today.”
The others averted their gaze, unable to break it to Aoi. The important part was that she was trying, right?
“Can you finish now?” Akari demanded, impatient and eager to get back to Aoi’s tales of romance.
“Of course, dear. Where was I? Oh yes, the time we nearly got caught in the break room. After that we preferred the copier room. Oh, those times were so exciting, especially after our co-workers started to wonder why I needed so many reports printed out and why they seemed to take so long…”
Akari remained enraptured, but even Momoko was starting to feel like she was going into a bit too much detail. The copier room seemed to keep coming up, and yet she remained sparse on details about what they were actually doing in there.
“...anyway, between the broom closet incident and me perhaps getting a bit too handsy when we went out drinking, I decided to put love before career first.” Aoi continued a minute later, leaving certain plot points about her increasingly strained relationship with her superiors and other co-workers unresolved.
“I’m really happy for you, but you know what I’m even happier about?” Momoko interrupted, hoping to put this story to rest with a subject change. “The fact that you must be, like, a super magical girl veteran now! You must have so much more experience and stuff now!”
“Not really, I only became a magical girl about three years ago.” Aoi said, taking Momoko off guard.
“Huh? But then you’d be like, twenty-five, or maybe twenty-seven, or something around that when you became a magical girl!” Momoko was confused, not seeing how this added up. “I thought you could only become a magical girl before the age of eighteen!”
“Normally, you’d be right.” Aoi confirmed. “Once aging magic gets involved, well, things get more complicated. It’s more about being a magical girl now than being a magical girl then, after things got changed so much. The important part is having the heart of a young maiden, anyway.”
“Yeah, I remember recruiting her the same as it originally happened.” Azusa chipped in. “Normally asking your guidance counselor if she wants to be a magical girl is a weird thing to do, but it made sense at the time… I think. I think the magic that sorts these things out doesn’t really care if it makes much sense as long as it adds up…”
“Things get pretty different after that, but overall, it works out!” Aoi declared, eager to not think too hard about the mess that was her new backstory. “The important part is that all of my work as a magical girl played out exactly the same despite my age.”
“I think this is gonna give me a headache.” Momoko groaned. “I don’t really get it at all.”
“Why don’t we just agree to not talk about it unless we have to? Our memories should fill us in later if we’re lucky.” Yui suggested, equally eager to not have to start drawing charts to figure out what happened with Aoi and where.
“I agree. Aoi is Aoi, and we shall keep it no more or less. We would be poor friends if we were to act otherwise, would we not?” Sakura said confidently, determined to conceal the fact that she couldn’t make heads or tails of the less intense alterations to the timeline at the best of times. It wouldn’t do for the others to find out that she had needed to recruit Kuroko’s help to get her own personal chronology straightened out and figure out what had happened and when after her life had taken a significant turn. Confirming with Kuroko that certain events really had still occurred in the current timeline had been quite the bonding experience, but not one she was willing to share with others.
“Wow, your husband looks so young!” Akari exclaimed, lost in her own world of romance and unconcerned with the others’ continuity woes as she looked at a photo of Aoi’s beloved husband.
“Well, I’ve always said that age is just a number…” Aoi coughed as the others began to give her a certain look.
“Goodness, would you look at the time!” Aoi exclaimed. “Shouldn’t we all be getting home right about now?”
The group soon broke up and went their separate ways for the night after that. Azusa went home, her head full of thoughts about the new generation of Kaleidoscopes and her designated “heir” who was now almost a decade older than her.
Magic was really weird sometimes.
When her phone rang in the early evening, Azusa already had a pretty good idea of who was on the other end.
“Guess we get to see if your theory pans out.” Aoi said, her tone trying to be light and only mostly failing. She had cut straight to the point, their phone call simply picking up where she was unable to leave off in front of her teammates. “If I’m still a magical girl by the end of this year, I mean.”
“Yeah, well, about that.” Azusa said with a sigh. “Magical girls don’t retire just because they get older.” Azusa admitted. “That was just the easiest thing to tell you. The truth is, I felt out of place. Everybody but you moved on, and the team was filling out with younger girls I didn’t know and didn’t have time to get to get close with like you. Magical girls are supposed to be about friendship and closeness, right? If I didn’t have any of that, then what was I even doing?”
“I figured that out eventually.” Aoi sighed, wisdom coming with age. “The older you get, the more reasons there are to hang up the skirt and let the kids take care of it. But I just can’t let myself see it as somebody else’s problem.”
“You never seemed like the type who would.” Azusa said, sounding a little jealous. “I know how much respect you had for everybody from my generation, but to be honest we never had quite the dedication you did. One good transformation and suddenly it didn’t seem so fun anymore, and suddenly every monster we fought got put in perspective. Having your whole life changed wasn’t just something that happened to unlucky bystanders.”
“Historically, most teams have behaved like that. Most can’t handle the stress of repeated transformations, or the lack of cohesion.” Aoi said quickly, her encyclopaedia of magical girl knowledge defending the honour of her former team. “The longest running teams were the ones who all got transformed at once, teams like ours where everybody had something different happen to them rarely lasted long. And why would they? Every time you fight a monster that’s something that might happen to you that you never wanted. None of you were any weaker for not wanting to take chances. Besides, Hotaru got transformed recently and made the call to retire.”
“I saw Hotaru, she’s got a nice body now. Doesn’t look like the brainy type anymore, but I’d have her as an announcer any day. But it looks to me like she made that call because she can’t fight the way she used to anymore, not because she got zapped once and lost her nerve.” Azusa said, unconvinced by Aoi’s fierce defence. “Not all of us got it that bad, but we still flaked out. Your girls seem like the type who’ll stick together until something serious happens to them, that’s just the type you attract.”
“My new team isn’t better than yours!” Aoi insisted defensively. “I mean, they’re all wonderful and we have a girl who probably won’t stop until you force her to, but that doesn’t mean that…”
“We weren’t the same, Aoi. Just like we weren’t the same as the team who came before us, and the ones before that. Wasn’t it you who said that magical girls are nice because they’re all different?” Azusa reminded her.
“Did I say that?” Aoi wondered. It felt so long ago, and the mire of contradictory timelines didn’t help. It felt like something Momoko would say.
“You did. Why do you think I kept going after I got too much muscle to not look silly in the costume?” Azusa smiled on her end. “I looked ridiculous, you know. Posing with girls half my height took a lot of getting used to. I think that mattered a lot more than looking a couple of years older than the rest.”
Aoi paused for a while, then finally spoke.
“Well, now I’m married and have- had, a career.” Aoi caught herself. “And I’m still a magical girl for better or worse. And I can’t see myself quitting any time soon.”
“That just means that you still haven’t found anything in your life worth giving it up over.” Azusa said. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but you never know what it’ll be. You haven’t had any kids yet, right? Maybe that’ll be it. Aren’t you getting around that kind of age? Best to figure that out soon.”
“I don’t want to hear that from a younger woman.” Aoi harrumphed. “I don’t even know if I want kids. I never had time for them before to begin with while I was working.”
“Maybe now’s a good time to ask your husband?”
“Would you stop trying to make me retire?” Aoi said exasperatedly as Azusa’s deep giggle came through the speaker loud and clear. “You know what, maybe I’ll have a baby and still not retire, just to spite you. I’ll go on magical girl maternity leave and make sure nobody tries to find another blue while I’m gone!”
“Retirement? I’m implying nothing of the sort!” Azusa said unconvincingly. “It’s just that if you act like there’s nothing that could possibly be more important to you than being a magical girl, it’s really going to hit you when you do find it!”
“Or maybe I’ll find it and keep going anyway.” Aoi challenged her.
“Just don’t overextend yourself. You know I worry about you, right?” Azusa’s playful tone softened. “Knowing you, you’ll be the one to do it. That’s assuming you don’t go and get yourself transformed again. Anyway, I was just thinking, now that you’ve graduated and you don’t seem to have anything better to do besides magical girling, maybe we could hit the gym together? With a little extra muscle we might make a good tag-team-”
Aoi hung up.
“Who were you on the phone with?” Aoi’s husband asked from the next room as he took a load off on the couch, the salaryman’s necktie loosened as Aoi was reminded that she missed having a blouse to unbutton down to her bra. She knew he always liked that.
“Just an old friend.” Aoi said casually, putting her phone away as she snuggled up next to him.
“Had a long day?” He asked, Aoi’s head in his lap. She wondered if this counted as her first time meeting him, then decided otherwise. That wasn’t how the magic worked, fortunately. She had a new life with him and ahead of her, and she was going to treat it that way.
“Maybe just a bit.” Aoi confided, although she couldn’t speak further, her career as a magical girl remained a secret to him. “I’m sure I haven’t been working half as hard as you though, having to provide for both of us…”
“You say that like we weren’t living off of your savings for the first year before my promotion.” Mamoru laughed, growing more familiar by the moment as in Aoi’s mind he rapidly went from the vague figure of her new husband to her greatest love right in front of her. “Besides, just thinking about you gives me enough energy to get through the day.”
“Why do you have to be so romantic all the time?” Aoi complained, glad she was already in a position that meant she didn’t have to swoon. “You know I can’t compete with that. What am I supposed to say, that thinking of you gives me better advice for teenagers on their career plans? It’s not fair.”
“If life was about being fair I wouldn’t have met you. Everybody always said you were way out of my league, after all.” Mamoru smiled. God, Akari was missing out on this show. Maybe that was a good thing, she’d just be jealous all of the time.
“Like I care what this ‘everybody’ has to say.” Aoi pouted, leaning up and giving him a quick kiss. Normally this would have been enough to carry the two to the bedroom, but sadly it was perhaps too early in the night for that.
“Want me to make dinner?” he offered, picking up on Aoi’s unwillingness to budge from her comfortable position.
“No way. What kind of housewife am I if I can’t even make dinner for my hardworking husband?” Aoi insisted, slowly getting to her feet. God, she really wanted to just fuck him right then and there. But… oh, screw it. When Aoi wanted something, she got it.
“What’re you doing?” He asked innocently as she unbuttoned her jeans and began to pull her sweater over her head. Aoi smiled.
“Making dinner.”