Why was there always so much to do and so little time to do it?

  Adah lamented this unfair reality as she and Emi flew toward their mission’s interception point. Today’s job was taking them far across Region 4 once again, to the suburbs of its capital, Padoux. She had plenty of flight time to contemplate all of the work waiting for her when she returned home, including all the tasks she’d failed to finish before leaving on today’s mission.

  Only two days had passed since her and Emi’s conversation, and already an opportunity to show off Raindrop had presented itself. That was one benefit of taking on nearly every C-Rank that appeared—their team had plenty of chances to apply their ideas in battle.

  During those two days, in between training and helping Rika with her songwriting, Adah had been preparing all of the buildup for what was essentially Raindrop’s re-debut. While Emi wasn’t reinventing her character in the same way Adah had, they still needed to build certain expectations among her fans. Otherwise this fight wouldn’t be much different from any other mission they’d taken lately.

  A lot of the bigger changes—like renaming their team or designing new transformations—had to wait until everyone at Spotlight Sunbright was on board. What Adah and Emi planned for today was more like a proof of concept.

  They had started by sharing a closeup of Emi’s new hairpin on her social media accounts with the sufficiently vague caption: “A new era for Raindrop.” Adah had been toying with the idea of calling a change to Spotlight Sunbright’s theme “a new era,” if everyone ended up agreeing to it, but there was no reason she couldn’t test it with Emi first.

  The photo would have stirred some discussion among Emi’s fans no matter what, but was especially effective coming on the tail of Adah and Rika’s Heartshot teaser. Just a few days ago, anyone paying attention to their team would have seen the announcement of the Heartshot sub-unit, and now Raindrop was posing with a broken heart ornament too. Was Emi going to be joining them? Maybe even singing? Was Raindrop going to change her transformation? If three out of four team members were linking up this way, did it mean a whole rebrand was on the way? The fans did what fans were wont to do: speculate and theorize.

  Adah’s hidden iceberg was growing even larger than she had planned. If this strategy worked out with Emi, it was probably time to pitch her idea to her team properly.

  For today, the focus would be on Emi. What Adah had said during their conversation remained true—Emi would still be Emi, and Raindrop would still be Raindrop. In isolation, it would look to fans like nothing had changed. Adah and Emi had to work together on this mission to activate the fans’ imaginations, to get them to see what they wanted them to see.

  They were putting on a play, and although they were but a two-woman troupe, they had the ultimate weapon for producing a compelling show: magic.

  Compared to promoting the Heartshot duo or rebranding their team, Adah’s plan for today was simple. She would bookend the mission with a bit of theatrics, “drawing the curtains” for Emi’s performance in the middle. Adah’s acting would include a little storytelling, but mostly she was doing it to set a mood. She needed to prime the audience to see Emi’s performance in a certain light. Then it was up to Emi to deliver on that promise and put on a show they’d never forget.

  Though, Adah had one trick up her sleeve to help Emi out during the battle. A new use for [Parietal Perception] that was less about fighting in an optimal way and more about stunning the crowd.

  What was it Ketzia had said? Every spell has two jobs: defeating Cruelties and hyping up fans. Adah thought she might have found a way for her enhanced vision to achieve job number two—not for herself, but for her teammate.

  Although Adah had confidence in the plan from the marketing angle, relying on Emi to safely execute it in combat still gave her pause.

  “We’re almost there,” she said to Emi as they flew together. “How are you feeling?”

  “Good,” Emi said, still staring off in the distance toward their destination.

  “Yeah, but like… are you ready?”

  “All I have to do is fight, right?” Emi said. “Then I’m always ready.”

  Adah couldn’t argue with that. Part of being a captain was knowing when to step back and let your teammates be cool. That was what Emi had originally asked her to do, after all.

  If Emi believed in her own abilities, then Adah would too. Part of Emi’s safety was dependent on Adah’s help, so she couldn’t waste her focus on worrying. Like with the first C-Rank they had ever fought, the battle would become more dangerous if they only committed halfway. Like so much else in this industry, plays like this one were all or nothing.

  The time to focus had arrived. A gray mass loomed in the distance as the girls approached today’s interception point.

  The Cruelty for this mission had spawned in a suburban neighborhood similar to the one in which the girls had fought their first C-Rank, the scorpion. The homes here appeared a bit less affluent, and the streets of the neighborhood ran up the length of a steep hill like ski trails on a mountain. The parallel streets were connected only by short throughways at the bottom of the hill, and each ended in a wide cul-de-sac at the top. The Cruelty had roamed into one of these cul-de-sacs, perhaps in search of a vantage point from which to hunt its prey.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The monster looked like a lynx or some similar big cat, grown to a size slightly smaller than a school bus. At a distance, it was the rare Cruelty that could pass for a normal animal, so long as you ignored its massive size. It prowled around the cul-de-sac with its stubby tail tucked tight to its body. Its hind legs were long and thick, and looked like the spring-loaded limbs of some standing robot. Even without a mission brief, Adah could tell the power in those legs helped push this monster into C-Rank territory.

  Adah and her teammates had yet to fight this lynx Cruelty, even though they had recently ramped up their workload. All the same, they were familiar with it. This variant attracted more attention than most C-Ranks, given how it forced magic users to adapt to its fighting style. The lynx pushed most teams out of their comfort zone, which made for an exciting battle. Even other magic users liked to tune into how their colleagues handled the monster. For that reason, this variant was the ideal opportunity for Emi to show off why she was a fighter worth keeping an eye on—even if the mission posed some extra danger.

  The lynx attacked in a similar fashion to its animal counterpart, by stalking and leaping onto its prey, but with a speed that far surpassed a normal big cat. Between the beast’s size and the strength of its legs, it could probably hop between the streets in this neighborhood with no trouble. That speed and the distance it could close made it a fearsome foe on its own, but what put magic users to the test was its invisibility—a special ability no doubt granted by the magic essence used to create the monster.

  The lynx couldn’t vanish entirely from sight, but it could shroud itself in an illusory fog. It became hard to keep track of with the naked eye, like it was hidden behind a mesh of ferns and grasses even though it was physically out in the open. While shrouded in this way, the lynx would creep around, searching for either a new angle of attack or a piece of actual cover to hide behind as it planned its next move. In an area like this neighborhood, it was easy to guess it would use the ability to sneak behind nearby houses, where it could truly vanish before leaping out for a kill.

  Typically, teams would counter this ability by covering each other’s backs or prepping with fully defensive spells like Iris’s [Bulwark Bud]. Teamwork was a reliable way to neutralize the lynx’s main threat. Emi, however, would be fighting the beast solo. She would have to rely on an entirely different means of protection: Adah’s eyes.

  As Adah and Emi flew closer to the Cruelty, they passed overhead a crowd of bystanders atop a grassy knoll just beyond the bottom of the neighborhood streets. They needed to stay far away from the action with how quickly this lynx could move. The knoll at least offered a vantage point for cameras to capture some decent angles of the coming battle.

  The crowd was distinctly split between two groups. The first was that of the usual news crews and their cameras and reporters. There was as much media presence here as there had been at the K-Rank Sunbright and DreamRise had fought together, most likely on account of the lynx variant showing up. Adah hadn’t promoted Emi’s mysterious post in a way that would attract any attention from traditional news outlets.

  The second group of civilians had gathered in a clump off to the side of the news crews. They looked like a massive blob of blue, like a wiggling amoeba as they waved to the passing magical girls. They were all wearing the same blue shirt that, if the girls had flown low enough to see it, read “Ra, Ra, Rally Force!” across the chest in white text. They roared as Adah and Emi flew by, which Adah could vaguely make out as them chanting the same phrase.

  “What the hell?” Emi said.

  “Seb promised to help you, didn’t he?” Adah said. “He told the Rally Force that if they wanted to know what that post was all about, they should show up here. But if they show up, they better cheer until they lose their voices.”

  The matching shirts had been the idea of the Rally Force members themselves. It was a nice touch, and made Adah laugh to think how confused the reporters down there must have been.

  They made for a useful combination: news outlets hungry for a story with visual flair and a rabid fanbase eager to watch the next development of the magical girl they loved. The media coverage would be incentivized to show off the coolest parts of Emi’s fighting, and the fans would give life to the story behind it all through their discussions. All that was left was to start the show.

  “What do you say?” Adah asked. “Shall I draw the curtains?”

  “Do the honors,” Emi said.

  The girl had gotten distracted by the crowd for only a moment. Already her eyes were narrowed as she watched the lynx prowl nearer toward them. Her focus softened her expression. All of her energy went to watching her opponent and readying her body for combat. Her hands were loose and open in anticipation of her weapon.

  “We’ll do it like we practiced, so give it everything you’ve got,” Adah said. “Show the world what you want them to see.”

  “Make them fall in love,” Emi said.

  “Exactly. You have to hold someone’s heart in your hands before you can crush it.”

  Adah took a quick peek back at the crowd, then stretched her arms overhead and faked a yawn. She flew higher into the air, above Emi. Then she called Izzy out of hiding.

  “Showtime,” she said. “Pop a squat.”

  “Do I truly need to be a part of this?” he asked. “You two are plenty capable on your own.”

  “You’re essential,” Adah said. “And what’s the problem? You were more than happy to play along with those kids at the river.”

  “That was different,” he said. “This is… disgraceful.”

  “It’s a night at the theater,” she said. “If you won’t do it for me, do it for Emi. She’s never tried to kick you before, has she?”

  Izzy stared at Adah with a pigly expression, which meant it looked like all of his expressions.

  “Fine,” he said. “In exchange, I request tiramisu.”

  “Tiramisu? Do mascots even eat human food?”

  “Rika gives Lumi salmon sashimi all the time,” he said.

  “Go figure,” she said. “Tiramisu for a pig. You’ve got a deal, so squat.”

  Izzy floated behind Adah and then hovered in place a bit below her. Once he was ready, Adah lowered herself down onto his back until she was sitting on him like a stool. She crossed her legs and leaned back with her hands propping her up against his body. Hopefully, she looked like a haughty queen watching some dinnertime entertainment. That was the impression she needed to give the cameras.

  In this fight, Raindrop would be handling the dirty work while Heartbreak enjoyed from afar. It was a show within a show. It was something that would befuddle the uninitiated observer, but in turn would allow Emi to shine all the brighter. The more confused onlookers were by Adah’s behavior, the more attention they’d pay to how Emi’s fight was going.

  To them, it’d look like Adah was leaving her teammate to struggle alone.

  Emi glanced up at her, and Adah nodded in return.

  The lynx was watching Emi now, the two of them staring at each other in silence as they closed the distance between them.

  Emi called upon Mercury’s Majesty. The weapon materialized with a splash in her hands, currently assembled in its spear form.

  Adah cast [Parietal Perception] and fixed her gaze on the lynx. The shadow of its movement appeared as a gray trail in her vision.

  Through a magical channel, she whispered to Emi, “Let it rain.”