“Boss, this is bad! Why aren’t you answering my messages?!”
Valentine shoved open Night Theater’s heavy doors, out of breath.
Some measure of an unnamed classical piece was still echoing through the abandoned theater.
He looked toward the chair where Owl usually sat, and he found no one.
“Where is he?”
He searched all around, and suddenly he tripped over something at his feet.
He looked down, and the scene before his eyes dragged a tenor scream out of him.
Owl lay limp on the ground.
The expensive suit he usually treasured was a mass of wrinkles now, as if he had rolled a lap in the mud, and empty wine bottles lay scattered all around him.
“What happened? Why so rushed?”
Baby Face’s voice came from behind him.
Valentine looked back and found an apron tied on her, and a big pot in her hands.
“You came at the right time. Help me get Owl onto the sofa. I can’t move him.”
So long as no one made Baby Face angry, she was the one who looked after people in daily life.
Valentine obediently half dragged, half hauled Owl onto the sofa.
“So… what’s wrong with Owl? He looks like a middle-aged man who’s lost at life.”
He pointed at Owl, dead drunk on the sofa.
“It should be that a monster from the next city over came looking for trouble, and Owl beat him back. I don’t know the details. Anyway, after he came back he drank while saying he was going to make Night Theater the strongest evil organization in the world, and he wouldn’t listen no matter how we advised him.”
Baby Face’s tone was full of helplessness.
“I didn’t think that under Owl’s artsy-youth exterior there was ambition like this…”
Valentine was halfway through the sigh when he suddenly remembered why he had come.
“No, wait. I came here to ask him for help! Fox Mask is in danger right now!”
At those words, the pot Baby Face had just been about to set down slipped from her hands, and pot and soup both smashed onto Owl.
She grabbed Valentine by the collar and asked, urgent.
“Say it clearly! What’s wrong with her now?”
“She’s surrounded by three magical girls right now…”
Before he finished, Baby Face had already run out in a rush, as if she had completely lost her reason.
Valentine shrugged, helpless, crouched down to pick up the pot smashed across the floor, and prayed she would not deal with those three magical girls too harshly.
On this side, Fox Mask and Sakuraraku were still locked in a tangle.
Sakuraraku’s two-sword assault was wide open.
Every attack used her full strength, with no probing at all.
The two longswords danced up a fierce wind.
Fox Mask dodged, and at the same time she watched Sakuraraku’s attacks, trying to find an opening.
Not a bad momentum…
Since Sakuraraku wanted to suppress her with a fierce assault and two swords, she could use that to break the deadlock.
Fox Mask turned her single blade across, and as she parried a cleaving cut her right foot had already stepped inside Sakuraraku’s guard.
Sakuraraku’s other longsword did not make it back in time to defend, and Fox Mask struck her in the stomach with the hilt.
“Ha… ha.”
Sakuraraku fell back two steps.
Her lungs pulled air like a broken bellows.
This kind of high-intensity two-sword cutting could suppress Fox Mask for a moment, but the drain on her stamina was simply too great.
Fortunately, she was not fighting alone.
She felt a wave of heat behind her.
It was the fireball spell Mawata had cast.
It had been hidden behind Sakuraraku’s body the whole time, and now the fireball flew at Fox Mask as if it had appeared from empty air.
Fox Mask had just meant to dodge right when her body hit a soft woven net.
It closed around her like the rope net of an octagon cage.
Did Seika weave this just now, outside my blind spot, while I was fighting Sakuraraku?
The thought took shape in an instant.
Fox Mask flipped and kicked off the net, used its spring to leap, and dodged the fireball.
An arrow flew at her in the air, as if certain she could not cut it down without ground under her.
But Fox Mask’s swordwork was sharp and masterful.
How could she fall for a trick like that?
The moment the blade touched the arrow, though, a brute gravity nailed her to the wall, sword and all.
In an instant, Sakuraraku’s longsword was pointed at Fox Mask’s throat.
“You lost.”
Sakuraraku said it, her voice hoarse, and her sakura-colored eyes watched her quietly.
So that’s it. I didn’t think they could coordinate to this point in so short a time. I underestimated them.
Under the mask, Nadeshiko’s eyes showed appreciation.
But if they pulled off Fox Mask’s mask now, her villain career would be over. She had to think of something…
“Hey. Magical girls over there.”
Just then, someone no one had expected appeared.
The girl in the rabbit head stood in the backlight, a student pinched in her hands, held high.
“That’s… Nadeshiko…?”
Mawata, behind them, cried out.
The “Nadeshiko” in Baby Face’s hands twisted in pain, and moaned along with it.
“Save… me.”
Well done, Baby Face!
The real Nadeshiko under the mask nearly failed to hold in a laugh.
Choose, magical girls! The evil woman cadre who is about to be beaten, or a pitiful classmate who was only passing by?
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