Maji was becoming concerned about Kikyo, she hadn't come out of her apartment for days. He thought she might have just been going out while he was at work, but when he had asked Nagi about it, she confirmed that Kikyo had been inside for almost a week. He approached her door on his day off and raised his hand to knock when he heard a shout from inside.

“YES! It's finally done! Hahaha! I did it!” followed by a loud thump.

Maji stood shocked for a moment, but quickly knocked, “Sorane-chan, are you alright?”

He heard the sound of shuffling papers, then footsteps running towards him. A bedraggled and wild eyed Kikyo opened the door.

“Oh hello Maji-san! How are you?”

“Oh, er, I'm fine, what about you? You haven't left your room in a while...”

“Ahh,” Kikyo looked behind her, “Well, I've been working on something. But I finished today!” she smiled proudly.

Maji was relieved, but also worried, what could she have been working on that prevented her from leaving?

“Would you like to see it?” Kikyo asked, forgetting she was talking to a regular human being despite going through the trouble of hiding her reference materials.

“Er, may I?” Maji asked, surprised by the offer.

Kikyo, realizing her mistake hesitated, but thought she might be able to pass it off as an art piece, “Of course!” she said in a voice that made it obvious it wasn't part of the course.

She stepped further into the apartment, allowing Maji for follow her.

On the floor in one corner of the room, an intricate blue pattern of layered circles interlaced with geometric shapes and characters of a language Maji didn't recognize let out a faint glow.

He stared at it in shocked silence for a while, it was like something out of a game, and stranger still even thought the apartment lights were on and there were no power cords in sight, it still emitted a glow.

“What is it?” he finally asked.

“A secret art project,” Kikyo replied. Her tone was convincing for once, probably because it was half true, she had put a lot of time and energy into that circle, like any good piece of art.

“It's glowing,” Maji said lamely.

“Th-there's paint that can do that,” Kikyo said, “Anyway, sorry if I worried you!”

Maji shook his head, not fully convinced with that explanation, but also not wanting to cause Kiyko trouble since he'd just wanted to check in on her.

“Well, so long as you're doing well and healthy.”

Kikyo smiled, “I appreciate it!”

“Do you do big art projects like this often?” Maji asked, looking around the room.

Kikyo blanched, “I hope not...Ah, but I do like to draw!”

“I hear big art projects usually have some kind of meaning behind them, what about this circle?”

“Ah...You could say that. Kind of like, a call to something beyond our world?”

Maji blinked, “That's both really specific and really vague at the same time.”

“Hmm, well I made it for Riho to show her how it works,” Kikyo started before realizing that statement would only make things more complicated.

“Riho-san likes art too then?”

“Eh? Ah! Yes, yes she does!”

Thankfully, Maji had misunderstood in a convenient way.

Maji looked around and noticed Kikyo still only had her bed and television stand as furniture.

“Sorane-chan, have you heard of Omnizon?”

“Omnizon?” she hadn't heard of that before.

Maji hesitated, suddenly realizing that if he told her this his concerns of her not leaving the room would have growth potential. But given he'd already said the name, she'd be able to look it up on her own so with a sigh he continued.

“You can use it to order stuff online, and it'll be mailed to you.”

Kikyo's eyes lit up, and Maji had a premonition that his concerns would be on point.

“J-just be sure to go outside every so often...” he tried.

Kikyo came back with a response out of left-field, “Invite me to do things outside then,” she wasn't looking at him, but instead had whipped out her phone, probably researching Omnizon.

“Er, you wouldn't mind?”

“I'd be really happy, actually,” her eyes were lit up, but she still wasn't even looking his way, he felt the weight of responsibility falling onto his shoulders.

“I-I'll do my best,” was all he could manage.

Kikyo finally looked up, “This looks like it'll be fun! We didn't really have anything like this at home!”

Seeing her innocent excitement he decided maybe this was for the best.

“Are you free today?” he asked, given that it was his day off and they were already together.

“Sure! I finally finished, and otherwise was just going to sleep or play with the S4ND,” she said as she stretched.

“How does going to the park sound?”

“Ooh! There's a park nearby? I haven't gotten a good look around the city yet now that I think about it...that's pretty bad, I've been here almost two weeks now!”

Maji smiled, “Well, when I can I'll take you lots of places then.”

“Really!?”

“Sure, as long as you'd like to.”

Riho's phone buzzed in her pocket. It was almost time for her break so she waited a bit before she checked it, and was surprised to find it was from Kikyo! She opened it and the first thing that caught her eye, was a picture of Kikyo and Maji at the park where she had met Genta-kun. Kikyo looked like she was having a blast, Maji didn't look like he was upset or bothered, but his excitement was certainly not on the same level as the girl beside him.

The message above the photo read: 'Just finished that 'homework,' so taking a breather! Come by when you have time.' Beneath the photo was a second message, 'Sorry for bothering you at work! Have a good day!'

Riho audibly clicked her tongue. Having Kikyo show her common decency was upsetting. Probably because Riho still looked at her as an enemy to be eliminated and was wrestling with all of the 'what ifs' should that not necessarily be the case, while Kikyo had only ever looked at her as another person from a different place.

She tapped out a reply, 'Where do you even live?'

The reply came so quickly she wondered if Kikyo had even read her message, and only contained the apartment's address.

Riho sighed, and sent a sticker that simply said 'Understood.'

'What is that!? It's so cute!' came the reply. Riho did not dignify it with a response.

On her next day off, Riho made her way to the address Kikyo had sent her. The building was almost identical to the one she lived in, maybe a bit smaller. She texted Kikyo telling her she had arrived at the complex, then made her way up the stairs, which creaked in a familiar way. In some ways it was a good feeling, that Kikyo wasn't living any better than she was, at the same time however she couldn't stand having so much in common.

She approached the door to Kikyo's room and knocked. Kikyo answered almost immediately.

“Hello! Please come in!” Kikyo said with a big smile, clearly eager to show off her handiwork. Riho thought her face looked rounder than she remembered, and didn't hesitate to say so.

“You've put on some weight,” she felt more bitter than she expected, perhaps since they had been apart since that day at festival and she had been stewing on all the things that had happened. But Kikyo blew her off with an embarrassed smile.

“Aha, yeah... I blame all the delicious stuff they have here!” she continued, “Anyway, come on. There's a looot to explain.”

Riho followed her in, suddenly feeling deeply ashamed of herself, so much so her face burned.

“Hey...” she started, Kikyo stopped and looked at her.

“I-I'm sorry...that was rude.”

Kikyo looked surprised, then her eyes lit up, “Eh? Really? That's some progress! I was worried you'd be really stressed out, having to hang out with me for a while.”

Riho didn't know what to do with her emotions, the total lack of hostility from Kikyo was upsetting and comforting at the same time. For the first time she began to resent the culture of Priripon that had raised her.

“Anyway, lets not get caught up in complicated interpersonal stuff, and switch over to complicated magical stuff. You're not gonna have time to worry about it in a minute,” Kikyo said casually.

“You're too nice to me. I tried to kill you...several times.”

Kikyo shrugged, “That's how it goes between our people, sad as it is.”

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“Y-you can just blow it off like that?”

“Ehhh, not exactly? It's more like it's too big a problem for me alone to solve so I choose to just focus on where my hands can reach,” she reached out and touched Riho's shoulder, “Oh would you look at that,” she flashed the Magical Girl a winning smile.

That was enough to sway Riho's wavering heart. Looking at the big picture with missing information was only stressing her out and making things more complicated than they needed to be. To her, Kikyo wasn't a bad person, even if she was a Mazoku. To begin with, now that her concept of Mazoku had been called into question, continuing to forcefully stick classifications on herself and Kikyo would only serve to muddy the already murky waters of their existence. Then and there she decided to treat Kikyo not as her enemy, but as another person. At least, logically that was her conclusion. Her emotions lagged behind, a complex web of feelings and experiences that wouldn't so easily change, but she was taking her first steps.

She took a deep breath, “I like that. Mind if I borrow it?”

Kikyo bowed, “You are most welcome to!”

Riho then turned to the very obvious glowing circle in the corner of Kikyo's room, “So, should we get started on that?”

“Very astute of you! Yes, this is a summoning circle: altered!” Kikyo said, taking on the persona of an infomercial host.

“Altered?”

“Because we're not summoning something new, but breaking a kind of seal on your pact partner, we need to summon it directly.”

Riho still wasn't entirely sure what to expect, so she followed Kikyo's lead.

“I'll need to borrow your emblem, or if you don't want me to touch it, put it down in the middle of the circle!”

Riho unfastened the clasp and removed the emblem from her hair. She put it in the circle herself. Objectively she didn't think letting Kikyo touch it was a bad thing, but somewhere she still had reservations.

Kikyo pulled out a stack of papers and spead them on the floor. They were full margin to margin with diagrams and text in three different languages, two of which Riho didn't recognize.

“What is all of this?” she said, amazed.

“Reference materials. Summoning is complicated! The multiverse is full to bursting of individual beings, so to pick out just one and call it in from its home to yours is quite a delicate procedure. Luckily your emblem acts like an anchor and identification tag, so that saves us some time. The tricky part is that there's a bunch of seals on it, probably to prevent the entity from escaping and breaking its contract.”

“I-I see...” logically, Riho understood most of what Kikyo had told her, but looking over the reference materials, and the magic circle itself she really felt out of her depth. She understood the word 'anchor' in a magical context usually referred to an artifact that bound otherworldly power to another plane of existence, but why there were seals in place she couldn't understand. Seals were meant to break those bonds, to prevent power from leaking out, and to trap something somewhere. She had been taught that the powers the Magical Girls of Priripon gained from their emblems was voluntarily gifted from the being who made a pact with the emblem's original owner. The Magical Girls of the past had apparently started making these pacts to combat the Overlord's overwhelming might. Other than that, she didn't really understand much of their purpose.

Kikyo stretched out her hands over the circle, it flared to life, the pale glow replaced by a nearly blinding radiance. Riho's emblem levitated into the air, the fox-like face suddenly grimaced! A dark shadowy fox face flashed behind it, and bolts of dark magical energy leapt forth from it, but they were stopped by a barrier before leaving the edges of the magic circle.

Riho flinched back, frankly terrified. This was a power she had been trained to rely upon, but it looked more fierce and devilish than anything she had seen in Makai.

Kikyo spoke in a language Riho couldn't understand, and clapped her hands together! The sound of a bell and a wave of gentle white-gold light washed away the dark energy.

“That's the first seal purged, I'm going to need your help now Riho!” Kikyo called, a bead of sweat appearing on her brow.

Riho recovered herself and hesitantly crept up to Kikyo's side. The emblem was rattling wildly within the barrier of the magic circle.

“Wh-what do you need me to do?”

“Do what you would usually do when transforming!”

Riho nodded dumbly, and focused inward to her own pool of mana.

“Forebearer of an age upon thee I call, lest here I fall! In these lands I live, stop the clock, halt the hands!”

Riho's vision swam, and her heart palpitated abnormally. The connection she normally felt, the sensation of bringing mana in from elsewhere alongside her own, was strained. Likely because the vessel she used to bring in that mana was isolated in a barrier at the moment.

There was an intense dark flash from within that barrier, the fox face grimaced deeper and ethereal paws slammed into the barrier. An incorporeal creature was beginning to form within the barrier!

“Uhh this might be bad!” Kikyo said, sweat beginning to pour down her face. Riho had fallen onto her side, a splitting headache and the abnormal palpitations continuing. She struggled to look up at circle, and saw shadowy claws beginning to push through the barrier.

Riho squeezed her eyes shut and for reasons she herself barely understood she whispered, “I'm sorry...I'm so sorry...forgive me!”

The shadows around the incorporeal creature cleared, and it seemed to relax a little.

Kikyo grimaced and pushed back magically, “That's the second seal! One left!”

Riho exhaled heavily, the headache and heart palpitations easing.

“What should I do?” she asked.

“Call out to it, do you know its name?”

“How would I kno-!” she stopped, she saw symbols in her mind, but she couldn't read them, she scrambled over to some of Kikyo's papers!

“What are you-?” Kikyo began, but Riho was already scribbling something in an empty margin.

“I can't read it, but this is in my head!” She shoved the paper towards Kikyo.

Kikyo stared at the scribbles for a moment, scrunching her brow. It was like trying to read the hiragana of someone who had never taken a Japanese class and was copying someone's handwriting.

After a few tense moments Kikyo managed to decipher the chicken scratch.

“It says 'Lasrefel,' I'm guessing that's its name!”

Riho turned and without thinking shouted emotionally, “Lasrefel!!”

With a sound like the shattering of glass a wave of energy emanated forth from the emblem and all of the dark energy was dispersed. The emblem dropped to the center of the circle again, and a single white glowing orb hovered in the air where the emblem had been.

“Third and final seal, purged! Now for the actual summoning part!”

Riho sat down, her face felt hot after the emotional outcry.

Kikyo chanted in the unfamiliar language, moving her hands in complex forms that Riho was unable to discern were part of the ritual or simply some form of mnemonic device.

From the white orb, a spiral of energy spread forth. Almost like a fountain, it filled the bottom of the barrier, and then seemed to vanish, before suddenly it appeared! A dark fox...was it a fox?

Its fur was gray except around the ears, paws, and tip of the tail which were black. From its ears came long tendrils which also ended in black, they were almost like scarves in length and thickness, but they ended in splintering shapes, almost like a star merged with a straight edge. On its forehead, near the end of the tail, and the ends of those tendrils was a set of four teal diamonds, identical to those on Riho's gloves, back, and shins of her Magical Girl form.

But perhaps the most shocking thing about its appearance was that where it should meet in the middle tapered off, its head and forelimbs separate from its tail and hind legs. In the space between those two sections a kind of nexus of magical energy fluctuated. It sat up proudly, curling its tail forward, then opening its eyes and taking the two girls before it in.

“This...is my pact partner?” Riho said, barely able to process what was happening. What happened next didn't help steady her nerves.

“I have no recollection of thee. Who art thou? Where hast Hina-hime been taken? What is this place?” the creature spoke archaically, as if the fact that it spoke at all wasn't shocking enough.

“Hina-hime, is that who you originally contracted with?” Kikyo asked.

The creature thumped its tail, “There is no original, she is the only whom I acknowledged as worthy of mine power. Who art thee?”

“Ah, right! I'm Kikyo, a Mazoku from Makai...”

The creature stared at her, “Nonsense, Mazoku have horns and such, you cannot fool me!”

Kikyo touched her star emblem, her horn appearing, “Well, I can't exactly walk around like this all the time on earth...”

The creature flinched back, “I-impossible... But if that is the case,” its gaze flicked over to Riho, “Then it is not Hime who hast been partaking of mine power as of late, but you?!”

A dark energy began to fill the barrier, and the creature's fur stood up, “Then thee art also the Overlord's ilk!”

“Um, no I'm a Magical Girl of Priripon...” Riho managed. She then felt a creeping sensation, as the creature's magic flowed into her from the pact channel. The amount was far larger than normal, and rather than prepared for use it was under the creature's control. Rather than an additional battery it was more like a probe.

The creature was silent for while.

“Thee speak truthfully. Thee bear the mark of mine pact, as ludicrous as it is.”

Riho wished she could fill Lasrefel in on what was going on in detail more quickly. As soon as she felt this way, she felt a shift in her mana, and Lasrefel's ears shot straight up!

Dark energy, great enough to shatter the barrier burst forth. Kikyo was sent sliding across the floor, coming to stop only when she hit the wall, Riho was afraid, but something told her to hang on.

Lasrefel's fur rippled and its teeth were bared, “Witch of Priripon! Thou hast deceived us!” It howled, but Kikyo and Riho felt those words weren't direct at them.

Lasrefel put its forehead to Riho's, “Lass of cruel fate! I will renew our pact bond, should a time come we shall strike down the hag-witch who controls Priripon from the shadows!”

“Sh-should such a time not come?”

Lasrefel calmed a little, and placed a paw on her lap, “Then instead this peaceful life we shall devote ourselves to protecting.”

Kikyo recovered from her shock of suddenly being launched, “Wow, that's a lot of power...”

She looked like she had remembered something, and tapped her star emblem twice, “Maou-sama! We summoned Riho's pact partner!”

Lasrefel looked over to her and approached, “Thou hast ways to contact the Overlord?!”

“She does,” came the voice of Otomi Mao. “I assume you are the one who was sealed in Funano Riho's emblem then?”

“It was originally Yashiro Hina whom I made a contract with. It would seem I have fallen for a vile deception by that conniving hag, Okoto Kaena! Curses on her name!”

Mao laughed, not a pleasant laugh, but one Lasrefel surely related to.

“So what will you do now?” he asked.

Lasrefel swatted Riho with his tail, “I will keep this one company. Should the day come, together we shall eliminate Okoto Kaena!” he said vengefully.

Riho didn't know what to think, but this was more evidence that the teacher she had so respected and had been treated kindly by in the past had hands in many works that could not be called good by any stretch of logic.

Apparently Lasrefel sensed this, “At least such is my wish. Funano Riho is more reluctant, her emotional wounds are deep.”

“As expected of a powerful thaumikitsune, your connection to your pact partner goes deep,” Mao commented.

Lasrefel looked at one of his paws, “And yet not deep enough. I can sense it now, Hina-hime is no longer of this Shore.”

“This shore?” asked Riho.

“The Near Shore, that is where all of the multiverse lies. Contrary to the Furthest Shore, across the Ethereal Sea where the land of the departed lies. None who cross the sea may return, though many have tried and many more become lost within,” was the short yet profound reply she received from Lasrefel.

Kikyo followed up with a practical application, “Using magic we can pull just a little bit of ethereal energy from the Ethereal Sea and use it in spells. It's good for summoning and teleportation because the Sea is always 'adjacent' no matter where a thing is, or even which universe it exists in. The only problem then becomes calculation and manacost.”

Mao followed up with a brief comment, “Ethereal energy can also extracted from dead or decaying things. Fungi are a good medium for early practice.”

“Wait, but if ethereal energy is so important, what's mana?”

“Mana is the catalyst of magic, and provides a cage, circuit, or conduit for ethereal energy to follow. Ethereal energy cannot be used by living things in its raw state, as far as I know,” Lasrefel explained.

“We don't really 'do' anything with ethereal energy so much as take advantage of the properties it naturally possesses,” Kikyo followed.

“To think a day would come that I would need to explain the basics of the Three Energies to a Magical Girl...just how much has Priripon rotted in the time since I left...” Otomi Mao mused.

That shook Riho, “What do you mean 'since you left?!'”

“Perhaps that was boastful, I did not leave so much as I was driven out.”

Lasrefel looked like he'd had an idea, “I see! So you are the sorcerer!”

Mao sighed, “It's been a while since I was called that, and I cannot say I have fond memories of that title.”

Riho moved back a bit, fragments of a children's tale she'd heard from her mother before she had even been admitted into an Academy.