After both the Sunbright and DreamRise teams had transformed and cycled through a makeup station that had been set up near the blue photo set, they all gathered with their managers in front of Neil and his crew.

  Neil explained the schedule of the shoot: the teams would split into two groups—one of which would go with a secondary photographer to the blue backdrop to take a suite of photos for general marketing, while the other would go with Neil to one of the two scenes for today’s main promotion. Then, once each group got all the photos they needed, they’d swap.

  Adah, Rika, Iris, and Ekki would go with Neil first. Ami, Emi, and Clair would start at the blue set.

  “Why are the four of us all together?” Ekki asked his manager.

  She rolled her eyes and said, “You know why.”

  “I really don’t think I do,” he said back. His face was growing a little red, though Adah didn’t peg him as the type to be quick to anger.

  After Iris assured him this arrangement would work just fine, he didn’t press the issue any further. Did he listen to Iris because he was loyal to his captain or because he was devoted to her as a person? Adah could take a good guess at which was the case. After all, she knew fully well why she and Rika were in this group together.

  The four of them followed Neil in the direction of the altar scene. Adah let Iris and Ekki get a bit ahead of her, happy for the chance to observe them without being looked at herself. She had seen photos of their transformations during her research, but there were always details you could only notice in person.

  Ekki the Fogstorm Knight appeared much as his name suggested—knightly, though more in the style of an adventurer than a member of some royal guard. Instead of any kind of full body plate armor, he wore a light set of pauldrons and chest guard along with metal bracers on his forearms. Actually, “wore” was misleading. His armor wasn’t attached to him by any conventional means but rather hovered just above his body, held perfectly in place by magic. This design allowed for more intricate coverings that would otherwise be impractical, such as the thin, scale-like plates of steel that guarded the three phalanges of each of his fingers. The same went for his segmented greaves and boots.

  Below his armor, he had on a gray tunic and trousers, though that was an equally misleading description. His clothes were certainly gray in color, but Adah questioned whether they could be considered clothes at all. Their physical form lay somewhere between fabric and fog, giving Ekki’s body a wraith-like appearance. The material—whatever it was—stayed in a state of perpetual motion with the contours of Ekki’s body vaguely visible beneath it.

  Iris’s transformation resembled a much more traditional magical girl outfit, though she clearly had no desire to be outdone when it came to using magic for the sake of fashion. At first glance, hers was the same sort of bodice and skirt combination you’d find a girl like Pureheart wearing, layered with intricately patterned lace that prioritized beauty over practicality. Much like the flowers lining the altar scene, her skirt had three hanging tails colored a deep purple that stood out against the yellow of her main wardrobe.

  What set her outfit apart were the many miniature flowers that dotted the trim along her whole costume. They were irises no larger than a fingernail that bloomed, unfolded, and shrunk back into themselves in an endless loop. They curled into white bulbs, unfurled in pale yellow petals, then bloomed whole in vivid color before closing up once more. The cycle repeated every few seconds, and Adah found herself mesmerized as she watched Iris walk.

  The cost in magic essence to upkeep either transformation wouldn’t be unsustainable, but it seemed like a waste given the level of FP they were at. At the same time, maybe additions like these were an investment in appealing more strongly to fans. Those details had captivated Adah’s attention, hadn’t they?

  While Adah pondered that, Neil led them onto the altar set. He pointed out which parts of the scene were fragile and which they could lean on, and began detailing his thoughts on a composition for his first shots. Iris promptly ignored all of this discussion and knelt down next to a row of flowers to smell them. She smiled and waved Ekki over to join her, which he did.

  With the two of them oblivious to his instructions for the moment, Neil took the opportunity to snap a photo of them. After she heard the first shutter, Iris scooted back a few inches to better expose Ekki to the camera, leading Neil to take even more shots.

  Fearing this might go on forever, Adah cleared her throat to get Iris’s attention. The girl looked up at Adah from her squatting position and, after Adah forced a smile onto her face, eventually stood upright again.

  “You don’t need to be so serious,” Iris said. “The photos won’t turn out very good if you don’t have a little fun.”

  “Humor me since I’m new to this,” Adah replied. “It’d be a big help if I could finish listening to our photographer’s instructions.”

  Iris smiled back and wordlessly turned to face Neil. A small grin appeared on Ekki’s face, too, as he looked between the girls. For some reason, that bothered Adah.

  In any case, Neil wrapped up his briefing and then directed everyone to their positions for the first of his planned compositions. To start, they split into pairs on either side of the altar. Adah and Rika took up the left side while the DreamRise pairing posed on the right. Neil had an assistant adjust some lighting and then the shooting commenced.

  Now that they were being photographed together, the gap between their teams became blindingly apparent. Iris and Ekki were used to being in front of a camera, and seemed to know what kinds of poses and expressions Neil was looking for without him needing to say a word. Iris seemed to have a third eye outside her own body, one that allowed her to see herself as other people saw her. She used it to figure out the best way to charm the lens pointed at her.

  By contrast, Rika had started to freeze up the same way she had in front of the news crew. Adah didn’t have any more experience than her teammate, but she’d need to take the lead for Rika’s sake. Neil had asked them for simple poses, just something to show each pair was close as teammates. This was the establishment or opening scene, so there was no need to overthink it. More expressive poses would come later. For now, Adah’s goal was to get Rika comfortable.

  She pulled Rika closer to her and looped their arms together, then had both of them place the hand of their interlocked arms behind their backs. This pose brought them hip-to-hip and, now that they were so closely connected, Rika loosened up a little.

  “All right, that’s great,” Neil called out, which seemed to give Rika some more reassurance. “Look just slightly above the camera here.”

  From there, the session cycled between Neil taking some shots, reviewing them on a computer monitor a short distance away, then calling for a new pose or arrangement. Whenever he would pause shooting to look at the monitor or reposition them, Iris would spark up conversation with Adah.

  “Aside from the flowers,” Iris said, “this setting appears to be dominated by Heartbreak’s theme, doesn’t it? I suppose that balances out the impact of Ekki and myself.”

  “Or maybe basing the whole theme on a flower would be extraordinarily boring,” Adah offered.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Don’t antagonize them, Iris,” Ekki said. “This won’t be the last time we have to work together.”

  “I’m not antagonizing them, Ekki,” she returned. “I only want them to know they don’t have to worry. This photographer accounted for all their shortcomings.”

  Just then, Neil called out to them again. This time, though, he wasn’t asking for a new setup but for Adah and Rika to join him over at the monitor.

  “Uh oh,” Iris teased. “Maybe he didn’t.”

  Adah and Rika ignored her and stepped down to meet with Neil. His brow furrowed in thought as he scratched at the stubble on his chin.

  “This is your first time doing an editorial, right?” he said.

  “A what?” Rika said.

  He laughed on reflex, causing Rika to blush before he said, “Sorry, it’s just most magical girls I work with tend to put on airs. Rare to meet some that aren’t trying to act a certain way. Anyway, I mean taking photos that tell a story. That achieve something a little more creative than a headshot. Ever done anything like that?”

  Both girls shook their heads.

  “Okay,” Neil said, then glanced over at Iris and Ekki before turning back to the girls. “Look, I can get more involved and pose you exactly how I want, but it’s a waste. A camera is magic. It’s one of the only tools that can be controlled by both the person using it and the person it’s used on. I can tweak the shutter speed and take a certain angle or mess with these lights, and the shot will always have my signature on it. But there’s only a tiny bit I can do to write your signature on it. The rest comes from you.”

  He held up his camera and pointed it head-on toward Adah. “If I do this, do you think it’s going to make a good photo?”

  “It’s going to be a mugshot,” she said, stepping to the side.

  “Exactly,” Neil said excitedly. “You can feel it—with that angle and vibe, the shot is going to suck. You don’t even have to be on this side of the lens to tell. It’s not usually that obvious, but if you think about it and practice, you can gain an instinct for it. What you give me in your pose and expression and what I discover from my side of the lens—it’s like a conversation. Do you get what I’m saying?”

  Adah and Rika shared a look, each likely seeing in the other’s eyes an equal amount of uncertainty. This was clearly what Iris already understood; the question was whether the two of them would be able to. But since not trying would be admitting defeat, they nodded back at Neil.

  “Good, and one more thing to remember,” he said. “Only someone on this side of the camera can see what’s in the viewfinder, but there is plenty that can only be seen by someone on that side. Feel free to surprise me with what you find.”

  They stepped back onto the set, Adah’s brain still thinking through how to apply Neil’s advice in practice. Iris and Ekki had been watching them, and the former looked like she was readying another vexing comment. Before she could fire it, though, Ekki spoke first.

  “Are you good to go?” he asked, a plain sincerity in his voice. He looked at Adah seriously, so she assumed his question was serious as well.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Let’s keep going.”

  Ekki grabbed Iris by the hand and led her away from Adah and Rika before she could say anything. Maybe their relationship wasn’t as simple as Adah had thought.

  As Adah watched them, she realized Iris was a natural conversationalist in more ways than one. Her expressions were all high fidelity, and the way she moved her body was full of energy and intent. She posed for the camera the same way she fired off her prickly little comments. She hid all her bite behind such casual remarks, but knew exactly how to package the underlying message to piss you off the most.

  She was doing the exact same thing with her modeling now. She hadn’t randomly stopped to smell the flowers earlier—she’d done it specifically to engage Neil, to make him want to snap a photo of it. She’d even thought about how to position herself next to Ekki to give Neil the best shot possible.

  She was a brilliant agitator. She trained you, too. Once you learned her tendency for backhanded compliments—or, in Neil’s case, her propensity for stumbling into photogenic moments—you started to pay more and more attention to her. You didn’t want to miss anything, and your undivided attention made it all the easier for her to strike.

  Adah didn’t have such a talent. If Iris was a scheming tactician, then Adah was an instinctual cavewoman. She flew by the seat of her pants when it came to this idol side of being a magical girl. Her first interaction with Seb, her plan to help Emi, even Operation Spotlight—all of them were ideas she’d cooked up on the fly. If she was good at anything, it was reacting to the situation right in front of her.

  With that in mind, the clarity of Iris’s behavior made for the perfect example to base Adah’s own tactics off of.

  Neil mentioned there were things that only they, the ones on the other side of the lens, would be able to notice. There must also be ideas that only they could think of. To a random photographer, she and Rika might just be two objects in the frame. But of course, Adah had a different perspective.

  She knew the kind of connection she and Rika shared.

  Putting it all together, she spied an opportunity. Thus far, the four of them had mostly stayed by the altar. It was the centerpiece of the set and had a sort of gravitational pull because of that. That left a lot of the scene unused, excepting Iris’s brief flower-sniffing diversion.

  “Step down the stairs,” Adah said to Rika.

  Rika hesitated and gave her a confused look. “What for?”

  “Neil said feel free to surprise him. Do you want to?”

  Rika glanced over at Iris, who was watching with a suspicious look of her own, then nodded eagerly.

  “Good,” Adah said. “Now just trust me for a bit.”

  Rika stepped down the first two stairs and faced back toward Adah, who had moved to the top of the stairs. Their new positions created about a head of height difference between them. Rika looked up at Adah, waiting for her next direction. There wasn’t much else she needed to do, though.

  The four of them had been grouped up for a particular reason. Actually, it wasn’t “the four of them” that had been grouped together, but rather “the two pairs of them.” Based on the social media activity after their fight against the C-Rank, rumors about Adah and Rika’s relationship were already spreading. The fans wanted them to get together. The way Iris behaved around Ekki was surely part of a calculated plan to hint at their romance, as well. Neither pairing was official, but that only made them more interesting.

  Thus, the reason for this grouping was simple.

  All fandoms had one thing in common: they were filled with people obsessed with shipping.

  Adah placed her hand under Rika’s chin, gently nesting it between her thumb and forefinger. She moved her hand upward ever so softly, and Rika’s head lifted up like it was floating on a breeze. As the pieces began to click together in Rika’s mind, her cheeks and the tips of her ears flushed bright red. Adah slowly bent forward, bringing their faces closer together until she could feel Rika’s fluttery breath against her skin. At this distance, she could smell the coconut of Rika’s conditioner. For a moment, she even thought she could hear the other girl’s heartbeat, but soon realized it was her own heightened pulse thumping in her ears.

  “Is this okay?” she asked Rika.

  “Mmhm,” came the wordless reply.

  They held that position—lips an inch apart, eyes locked together, breaths increasingly approaching what could be called panting—for a while longer. Adah desperately tried to maintain the composure and nobility of Twilight Heartbreak, but ultimately she was still herself underneath that facade, and these were still Rika’s lips nearly touching hers.

  Fortunately, Neil soon took their prolonged commitment to the pose as his permission to photograph them. Once he clicked the first shutter, a deluge of other shots followed. He hunted all around them for the best angle and distance to capture the moment.

  Unwilling to be outdone at her own game, Iris pulled Ekki over to the altar at the center of the stage. She hopped atop the altar so that she was sitting at its edge, facing Ekki.

  “Come here,” she said, pulling him closer.

  He approached warily, and as soon as he was within range, Iris flung her arms over his shoulders and brought her hands together behind his neck as if they were slow dancing at a high school prom. To get this close, Ekki’s hips were pressed against the side of the altar, his body caught between Iris’s legs. Iris looked up at him longingly.

  “Give me some warning next time,” he mumbled to her.

  “Why?” she asked. “Nervous?”

  He finally looked down at her, his face calm. He put his hands on her waist and leaned closer to her, completing their pose.

  The two pairs stayed like that for a while longer, with not a sound in the air but the rapid clicking of the camera shutter. The longer she held this pose, the more the reality of it set in for Adah. She could feel so clearly the shape of Rika’s chin in her hand and the slight dampness of the sweat that appeared between their skin. Partway through, she realized these sensations were not only amplified by the intensity of the situation, but their magic as well.

  Before her heart kicked into overdrive, though, Neil called out that he’d gotten enough for that pose. Both pairs broke apart instantly. The four of them all took a moment to breathe in deeply and reset their heads.

  The shooting didn’t go on much beyond that. At least, the time felt like a flash in comparison to the eternity Adah had spent so close to Rika. Neil and his assistant thanked the four of them for their work, and they thanked Neil in return.

  As Adah walked off the set, Iris came up behind her and bumped into the back of her shoulder as she passed. Despite the petty bump, she said something that made Adah smile as she walked by.

  “One good idea won’t be enough to win this competition.”