“Are you sure this isn’t weird, Aoi?”

Aoi looked up from her coffee at Momoko in response to her question.

“What’s weird?” She asked, delicately putting her cup down.

“You know, hanging out with us.” Momoko said tenderly, noting that at the café they had gathered in, they rather stuck out by being a group of girls in high school uniforms accompanied by a formally dressed adult who was clearly significantly older than them.

“What’s so weird about hanging out with my best friends?”

“Well, you’re, you know, older than us.” Akari pointed out. “We kind of stand out.”

“Age is just a number.” Aoi said breezily. “It’ll be bad for our teambuilding if I left myself out of things like this.”

“But it is almost as strange as if a lady of high class such as myself were to, as miss Momoko would put it, “hang out” with some unsightly street urchins or other unsavoury types.” Sakura said.

“Perhaps from your perspective, but I can assure you most of the people around us probably think that I’m just your club advisor. Do you see anybody staring?” Aoi dismissed their concerns, seeing no reason to avoid spending time with them just because of a little gap of ten to twelve years. “Besides, I go out for tea and coffee with other housewives ten years or more older than me all the time.”

“I don’t think that’s really a good comparison.” Akari winced, but had already resigned herself to the fact that Aoi was unlikely to take no for an answer on these matters. She relaxed a little when she looked around and found that Aoi was right; nobody seemed to care enough to be giving them any funny looks.

Yui mumbled something.

“What was that, miss Yui?” Aoi smiled.

“Uh, nothing.” Yui realised too late that she had been caught and should have kept her fashionably painted lips shut.

“Really? Because I could have sworn I heard you say-”

“I said I hope my friends don’t see me, because I don’t want to have to explain why I’m hanging out with somebody who looks like she’s my mom…’s friend!” Yui’s tan did little to prevent her from becoming visibly red as she hastily tried to amend herself.

“I do believe Yui seems to have a bit of a complex.” Sakura whispered to the others.

“I do not have a complex!” Yui insisted. “Have you seen her lately? I can’t be the only one she keeps asking about their homework, or about how they need to think about straightening out, and if they’re getting enough sleep lately, and if they need to go anywhere on the weekend they’d be happy to drive them!”

“Actually, some of that stuff is just you.” Akari gently let her down. “Although she keeps acting like I should have her permission before I start dating anybody for some reason.”

“I don’t need nagging to do my homework like you guys, but she definitely keeps asking me to consider going to bed earlier.” Kuroko chipped in. “Even though I get eight hours of sleep every night! My eyes are just like this! Is that a problem!?”

“Although it predates her blossoming, Miss Aoi has been hassling me about how I should be nicer to people lately, and how I should treat them with more respect.” Sakura sighed. “Heaven knows why, I’m the nicest person I know! And I treat everybody with the amount of respect they deserve, which is often precious little!”

“Most of that sounds like the normal Aoi.” Momoko added, feeling that her friend hadn’t changed all that much despite the ten or so extra years put on her. “Mostly the homework stuff. I don’t think she’s done that other stuff to me…”

“Well I don’t appreciate the special treatment!” Yui huffed. “When I go home I have to put up with all that stuff, and when I go out to avoid it I get it anyway! I don’t need two moms, one is bad enough!”

“I’m just trying to be a responsible adult. You ought to start thinking of becoming one yourself, young lady.” Aoi crossed her arms as if to assert dominance by emphasising her bust, Momoko starting to feel like her social circle was really starting to fill out lately as her eyes drifted back and forth between Aoi’s sweater meat and Yui’s unbuttoned blouse. Not that she minded. Being this busty was actually pretty nice, once you got used to needing an extra strength sports bra for anything remotely athletic and how the boys and some of the girls tended to stare. Plus, it would be nice to have some team unity again, wouldn’t it? Akari wanted to be more feminine, right? She felt she could definitely convince her of the benefits if a boob-monster ever showed up again As for Sakura and Kuroko, she felt like if she could convince one that would solve the issue of the other...

“Momoko!”

Her thoughts of busts and boobs were shut down by their owners, as Momoko turned her eyes higher for the first time in a minute or two to find that Yui and Aoi were staring intently at her.

“Well, Momo? Which one of us do you think is right?” Yui asked, looking confident that the pink girl would be on her side.

“Yes, tell us, Momoko. I’m sure you’ll make the right decision.” Aoi said, looking equally confident that she would come out on top.

“I, uh, well, um…” Momoko stammered, having absolutely no idea what had happened since she had tuned out of their bickering. She wanted to ask what the context was, but she felt like revealing that she wasn’t nearly as invested in this argument as they were would end poorly for her.

“I think, that…” Momoko said slowly, stalling for time as she tried to figure out how to worm her way out of this one. “...you should both just hug and make up instead!”

“If I wanted you to make things worse I would have just asked, Momo.” Yui groaned, her face in her palms.

“You told me to decide so I did!” Momoko said resolutely. “There’s hardly anything in the world that can’t be solved with a good hug!”

“Well, Yui? Where’s my hug?” Aoi said smugly, arms outstretched.

“Quit it.” Yui grumbled.

“You can’t even give your own team member a hug?” Aoi said in a sugary voice. “Weren’t we supposed to be the guardians of love and and friendship?”

“I agree with Momoko.” Sakura poked her head in. “I’ve found in my experience that hugs are excellent for, ahem, team-building.”

“With Kuroko?” Momoko asked innocently, thinking to herself that Sakura and Kuroko really were such good friends. “She’s never given me a hug.”

“Oh, you simply must try it sometime!” Sakura seemed to enter a state of bliss at the thought while Kuroko was too busy choking to protest.

“See, Yui? Everybody else is doing it.” Aoi continued to bear down on Yui. “Aren’t you supposed to be the trendy one? Now where’s my hug?”

This proved to be the push too far, and a beet-red Yui stood up, on the verge of making a scene.

“Just stop it, Mo-Aoi! You’re embarrassing me in front of everybody!” Yui cried, running out of the cafe. Startled by the display, Akari, who had been staring off into the distance, was suddenly brought back down to earth.

“Huh? What’s going on?” Akari asked cluelessly. “Sorry, I was thinking about hugging my boyfriend. What were you guys talking about? Is there a monster attack?”

--

Eventually, Aoi found herself leaving the cafe before the others, a sacrifice to make Yui come back. Akari had managed to chase Yui down and calm her down with the promise that Aoi would leave for the time being, Aoi deciding to accept responsibility for making a teenager cry and leaving. But she just couldn’t help herself, Aoi thought to herself as she walked the streets of Tokyo. Maybe when Yui was a little older she’d realise that the only reason why she was so cute when she was teased was because she reacted so strongly to it.

On the other hand, maybe she really was a bit too disconnected from the youth of today, Aoi mused. There were no more classes, no more homework, no more wondering what she was going to do in the future because the future had already come and gone. Instead she spent her days at school listening to young girls worry instead of her, and give the best advice she could, the best of which involved not burning out after doggedly climbing the corporate ladder until you were nearly thirty and then shooting your career in the foot by falling in love with one of your company’s fresh hires and doing all of the fun parts of an inappropriate relationship on the clock. In hindsight, she wondered how she had lasted this long in the first place.

Right now, it felt like all she had besides a loving husband was her life as a magical girl, the one thing to stick with her through the years. Even now her position she had wrangled herself into was to indulge said magical girlism, and as much as she enjoyed acting like she was ten years younger, she knew that a magical girl at her age was a rare sight. Not that it was her fault she got aged up by magic and got put in such an unusual situation! She shouldn’t be worrying about things like this, not when she didn’t last this long as a magical girl the old fashioned way.

At least she had finally gotten married, she consoled herself with, remembering all of her college friends having gotten married and settling down before they were even in their mid twenties. Most of them had k1ds by now, too, while she was still mulling over whether or not to let her husband talk her into having a baby before she got any older. Although when she was spending time with her time, it almost felt like she had a whole heap of daughters, right down to the rebellious one.

It was a nice feeling, although one that gave her pause when she realised that just a little earlier they had been her friends and equals, and the idea that they were the new generation that needed to be nurtured applied purely to the career of protecting the world with love and justice. What if Yui was right, and they all thought of her as a weird adult who happened to be a team member and kept hanging out with them like there wasn’t a generational gap for some strange reason? Was she an old lady now, just one who refused to act her age? Was this a mid-life crisis? She wasn’t old enough to have a mid-life crisis, she was still young! She had so many cute magical girl poses left in her!

Aoi sent her twintails rustling as she shook her head to dispel those thoughts. She was young! She was spry! She was totally youthful and cute! Her motherly bosom heaved with relief as she convinced herself that she was definitely not developing a complex of her own, and she put an extra bit of sway in her ch1ld-bearing hips just to show everybody that she had it going on. They would wish they could settle down and start a family with her! Aoi immediately reduced her sexy sway back to normal levels as she regained her sense of shame, almost slumping over as she let out a deep sigh of self-disappointment. She really wished she had something to distract her from herself right now…

“Watch out! That girl over there just got turned into a sexy nurse by that monster!”

Aoi’s ears perked up at the conveniently specific cry of a fleeing civilian, looking up to see the crowds beginning to panic as what appeared to be a harem of sultry nurses in short skirts and white uniforms with too much cleavage strutted down the street, an enormous stereotypical head-mirror visible over their shoulders.

“Stop running! I have time on my schedule for all of you! Humanity is diseased, and I’m the cure!” The monster’s booming voice called out, the mirror shooting out a beam at a woman who had stumbled in the panic. Upon being struck her jeans instantly receded as her t-shirt morphed slightly and grew ever so slightly long enough to be considered a dress, her hat shrinking and transforming into a nurse’s cap with a large cross emblazoned on it. Finally her shirt, now dress, gained a row of buttons that popped open, and the woman stood up with a smile on her face, falling into line with the rest of the medical harem.

“The doctor will see you now!” She said as she moved in lockstep with the others, the monster seemingly prioritising recruiting attractive young women over anybody else. Aoi ran for cover into the nearest alley, pulling her phone out of her pocket before pausing. Did she really need backup for this? She had faced dozens, perhaps even over a hundred monsters like this in her career. What did it say about her as a senior magical girl if she called for help on something she could handle on her own? What did she even have if she wasn’t a competent magical girl? Years of advice on not biting off more than you could chew were pushed aside in the face of her mid-life crisis as Aoi made the executive decision that in her entire magical girl career, she had been transformed so few times you could count it on one hand, with her mom bod only obtained very recently. And it was what, a monster that turned people into nurses and presumably doctors? That was a C-tier monster if she had ever seen one, she had taken out plenty of these on her own while she waited for her team to show up in the past.

“Ah, a magical girl! Have you come for a checkup?” The monster said as Aoi confidently strode out into plain view, a veritable legion of nurses surrounding the surgeon. He was dressed in bulky green scrubs, with sickly pale skin and most of his monstrous face obscured by a mask. His head mirror was his most distinctive feature as a result, but he carried an enormous and nasty looking scalpel as a melee weapon. Better than a big syringe, Aoi decided, having never been much of a fan of those.

“I’ve come to declare your operation a failure.” Aoi said, keeping a safe distance as she gauged its physical strength and agility. Based on how the nurses were sticking around it like a shield, he probably wasn’t too tough, preferring to slow her down by putting innocents in the way. Types like that always crumpled when you got past their defences.

“I never give up on a patient!” The doctor declared, staying right where he was. Not a close quarter fighter then, Aoi decided, materialising her rod.

“So, what’s your master plan? Turning half the city into doctors isn’t the worst thing that could happen. If anything that should make humanity healthier.” Aoi asked, having heard just about every ridiculous evil plan in the book at this point.

“Wrong! Too much compassion will be the downfall of mankind!” The monster boasted. “A doctor vows to do no harm, which means if you’re all doctors, there’ll be none left to fight back! It’s a flawless plan, I tell you! Flawless! I’ll have performed bypass surgery on the human fighting spirit!”

“Uh uh. And the nurses?” Aoi began to charge her energies into her wand, and the nurses looked like they were brainwashed enough to take the hit for him without fear.

“A pretty young girl in a short skirt improves blood circulation-” The monster skeevily began before Aoi swung her rod without warning, launching a fine bolt of energy directly into the monster’s mirror, the mad doctor yelping as it was knocked off his head entirely, removing his only ranged attack.

“Alright ladies, step aside.” Aoi stepped forward confidently. She had practiced enough over the years that she had perfect confidence that she wouldn’t hit them, and had adjusted the spell to dissipate on a living target anyway. The blast was effective only on inanimate objects, and had served its purpose perfectly. The nurses seemed shaken by the sudden attack and began to falter, the monster’s brainwashing perhaps not enough to keep them in check.

“That’s better.” Aoi smiled as the nurses parted around her, the monster stumbling backwards and brandishing its scalpel. She pushed a nurse aside, showing him that she had nothing to fear from his attempted human shields. She knew she was being cocky, but she had done everything right in this situation. She had gotten rid of his apparent weapons, was prepared for him to try to jump her with a surprise attack, had kept the victims safe, and was going to finish him off with a ranged attack so he couldn’t use his weapon on her.

“Alright, let’s wrap this up so I can-” Aoi said before she felt a prick in her arm, and her blood ran cold. She turned her head to see the nurse she pushed aside having jabbed her with a syringe, injecting it before Aoi had time to react. Of course she had failed to take something into account, Aoi thought miserably as she realised she had tempted fate too many times in this short fight. This was just like the time Kaleidoscope Blueberry of the Tropical Fresh Kaleidoscopes got turned into a harem girl by one of a genie-themed monster’s back-up dancers sneaking up on her and placing a veil over her face, and just like her it had been because she had underestimated them. It wasn’t common, but minions sometimes had the ability to spread the monster’s transformation on their own, and it had been so long since the last time it had happened she had let it sink into the depths of her magical girl knowledge, the thing she was so proud of. If she truly knew what she was doing, then it would have been trivial to take it into account, yet here she was.

“A doctor is often nothing without his assistants!” The monster declared triumphantly as Aoi staggered, feeling her uniform start to merge into a solid light blue one piece dress, the front opening up and setting her huge breasts free with a bounce. Her shoulders puffed up a little as her long gloves receded into delicate gloves that matched her uniform, and her boots shrank into high heels while the leftover material tightened into long stockings that ended with a visible garter belt reaching up her tantalisingly tiny skirt. Her uniform complete, a cute headpiece was placed atop her head, completing her image as a sexy nurse. Finally, her rod shapeshifted into an enormous syringe, not bothering her in the slightest despite its fearsome appearance thanks to the mental effects of her transformation.

“Now, nurse, I’ll take you as my top assistant!” He reached out a gloved hand, only for Aoi to double over in mirthful laughter.

“Like hell, you old pervert!” Aoi declared, brushing off her uniform as her painted blue lips curled into a plump smile. “I might have been stupid enough to fall for your little trick, but you’d need ten of you before you were strong enough to even think about mind controlling me!”

“It doesn’t matter!” Not used to his nurses talking back to him, the monster looked like he was about to pop a vein, but just barely held on. “It’s not like you’ll be able to bring yourself to attack me anyway!”

“Nurses don’t take the Hippocratic oath, moron.” Aoi pointed out, and the monster was speechless for a second. “Do you even have a real PhD?”

“I don’t need a nurse with a mouth on her, no matter how good her tits and ass are!” The monster shrieked. “A nurse like you is only good for giving geriatric patients their first boners in thirty years! I should have transformed you with a suppository!”

“Just shut up already!” Aoi yelled back, charging forward and ducking under his wild scalpel swing, jamming her gigantic syringe right into his groin, and causing all the men in Tokyo in a three kilometre radius to unconsciously reflexively wince.

“Kaleidoscope Love Injection!” Aoi called out, sending an enormous amount of magical power directly into the inside of the monster, causing him to practically burst the moment she wrenched the needle free.

“Operation successful!” Aoi declared, looking down at her new costume. This might be awkward to explain to the others, but it would be an ever-present reminder to never let her seniority get to her head. Come to think of it, all of her friends still remembered her as Aoi the student, not Aoi the school counsellor, and the way they were treating her was barely different to how they always did, save for the social awkwardness of their age gap. If she had just trusted that her friends had faith in her, she never would have gotten herself into such a purposely dangerous situation to try to prove something to nobody but herself. “Well, at least it’s kind of cute...”

--

“My life isn’t as different as I thought it would be, to be honest.” Aoi said back at the shrine, the group gathered to offer their sympathies. “Obviously I went into nursing, but I quit my job at the hospital when I got married anyway. So sorry if you got excited, I’m the same old Aoi.”

“What a relief!” Momoko sighed. “But what about your husband? You met him at your job, didn’t you?”

“Funny about that.” Aoi smiled. “I’m still married to the same man, and I met him the same way! Seems that he’s a doctor now instead of a salaryman. It pays better, so I certainly won’t complain.”

“That’s wonderful! Simply wonderful!” Akari suddenly grabbed Aoi’s hands, her eyes sparkling. “You must be fated to be together, to always find the spark of love no matter where your roads might lead! You’re so lucky, Aoi!”

“I guess so.” Aoi recoiled under Akari’s intensity.

“This is all my fault.” Yui looked downcast. “If I hadn’t got mad at you, you wouldn’t have been on your own, and we could have taken that thing out as a team.”

“It’s my fault for not waiting for help.” Aoi patted her on the shoulder. “I didn’t follow my own rules, and I paid for it. Simple as that.”

“Well, that’s what you get.” Yui mumbled, still feeling guilty. “But at least you aren’t our guidance counsellor anymore, so I’ll accept that as an apology.”

“You’re right, I’m not.” Aoi confirmed. “I’m the school nurse now! That’s much more stable employment, too, my tenure as counsellor was almost up in the first place, and to be quite honest with you, I only stuck around to keep an eye on you girls anyway. This way I’ll be here long enough to see you all graduate! By the way, miss Yui, you certainly seem to spend an awful lot of time in the nurse’s office during class. Should I ask you to do your homework while you’re there?”

“I’m starting to feel like I’m the one who doesn’t fit in anymore.” Momoko realised while Yui began to yell at Aoi again, now that she was the only one who didn’t have their own theme as a magical girl. It seemed like everybody was getting themselves transformed these days besides her, save for the odd minor bit of monster-induced growth here or there. Aoi had mentioned that it tended to be a slippery slope for teams, as one transformation often led to another, and ever since Hotaru had gotten herself transformed it seemed the team was making one slip-up after another. But even so, besides relatively minor cosmetic changes to her figure and hair, she herself had always come out unscathed. She wondered just how long that would continue to last…