Kikyo wandered aimlessly in the Lesser Mirror, the divination rod she had received spun in circles unless she lay it on the ground and moved a distance away, after which it would finally settle on a direction. After seeing that Kikyo gave serious consideration to the fact that she might actually be under some kind of curse.

Finally, she found the thread. A lot of it actually, several loops and waves seemed to have converged at one place. Excitedly, Kikyo readied the Fixed Recovery Disk. The threads were drawn to into it, at a rate Kikyo hadn't expected, creating a concentrated wave of mana that pushed Kikyo back. The scenery around her began to shift!

Vibrant colors, pale pastels, earthy browns, but more than anything: a deliciously sweet aroma. Kikyo looked around to find herself in a candy country! The path now beneath her feet was cobbled with cookies, a river of syrup ran to her right, and cotton candy clouds filled the sky. Trees of various chocolates and hard candies dotted the landscape which was interspersed with patches of browns and pastels.

Kikyo wiped away some drool, and focused herself back on her mission. As she followed and collected the thread, she noticed animals made out of sweets as well. As she crested a hill on the biscuit boulevard, she saw a gingerbread village complete with gingerbread men and women! She was about to enter when she noticed a group of armed gingerbread men decorated to look military. Given that she wasn't a gingerbread person, she doubted she could convince them to let her in. She couldn't deny the fact that she wanted to eat them after all. But the thread continued deep into the heart of the village. She would have to be sneaky then!

She activated her Mazoku powers, and dropped into a low stance. She brought her wings up over her head like a hood, and wrapped her tail loosely around her waist, in the past she could loop it twice. Now the barb at the end barely made it past the part of her back that her tail grew out of. A cloak of shadow formed between her wings and tail, and filtered down from her tail over her legs. Then it shifted from black to transparent! Except for her face and hands Kikyo was essentially invisible.

She followed the thread into the village, careful not to touch any of the frosting or brittle sweets that might give her away. The temptation to eat the landscape only grew stronger inside the village, with their delicate window boxes of sugar flowers, and doorknobs of gumdrops, chocolate chips, and other confectionery delights.

She followed the thread to a large candy house in the center of town. She would have to go inside to gather the rest! She waited for a while, but none of the gingerbread people came to open the door. Checking that no one was watching, Kikyo opened the door and slipped inside. She immediately rolled to the right covering her exposed face and hands with the shadowy robe as a gingerbread woman turned around with a questioning look as the door opened and shut seemingly by itself. The gingerbread woman walked over to the door, and opened it, checking the porch. Finding no one, they returned to whatever task it was they were performing.

The thread lead upstairs, so Kikyo carefully began to make her way to the staircase. It was made of thin wafer cookies, Kikyo had a bad feeling but put her foot on the first stair and tried to climb.

CRUNCH!

Kikyo winced and dodged behind the staircase as the gingerbread woman rushed into the room and looked aghast at the crater on her bottom step. She stamped a foot and looked around frantically. Finding nothing still, she rushed out of the house! Kikyo sighed with relief. Now was her chance! She rushed up the stairs, leaving them depressed and cracked behind her. She found the thread led her to study-like room full of small cookies decorated like books. But what really got her attention was a patch of void, upon which hung a pitch black mirror with a silver frame.

“That's odd...” Kikyo said aloud.

She heard a shuffling sound from her left, she looked only to find a gingerbread man, who must have been asleep in his study, staring at her in surprise.

“Ah...I'm sorry for the intrusion,” Kikyo said apologetically. The gingerbread man gestured and expressed in a way that communicated 'Oh no you're quite wel- Wait a moment!? Who in the blazes are you!? You're not a gingerbread-person!!'

He made for the door, but Kikyo instinctively took his arm, “No wait! I don't mean you any-” the arm came off, “Harm...Oh no.”

The gingerbread man looked at her incredulously.

“I can put it back! Probably...” Kikyo said unconvincingly.

The gingerbread man began to flee again. Kikyo then remembered that this was the creation of a Magical Girl's subconscious, not a real candy country. Her doubts cleared, she leaped on the fleeing gingerbread man and devoured him. She felt a little bad, but his wife had probably already gone to those military looking gingerbread people to tell them something was up in her house, so she needed to hurry. She was further convinced that this wasn't quite as real as it felt because though the gingerbread man was nearly as tall as she was, she didn't feel full at all and there was nary a crumb left of him. Though in some ways that left a little bit of doubt, because though she wasn't full, she still felt that she had eaten. Perhaps it was a trick of her mind, either way now wasn't the time for that. She looked back to the silver framed mirror, which now had pale faced girl laughing uproariously pictured within. No sound came through the mirror but her posture and expression made it quite clear she had witnessed Kikyo murder and devour the gingerbread man. They made eye contact, and the girl smiled, putting a finger to her lips. Her visage vanished, and Kikyo had her second bad feeling. She spread her wings, dispersing her invisibility in favor of flight, as a chaotic spout of magic obliterated the gingerbread house, just as the eaten gingerbread man's wife returned with a troop of nine gingerbread army men behind her. Kikyo noticed the thread was tied into that chaotic mass of mana.

“Oh I am so sorry!” she called down to the gingerbread people.

The gingerbread woman fell to her knees, shoulders shaking as though she was crying. Kikyo felt really bad now, but there wasn't time for that, the chaotic magic began to take form and grew, larger than the village itself! It took the shape of a bear, an enormous furious bear made of cake!

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“I get to fight a bear made of cake!?” Kikyo cried, unable to contain her excitement.

WHAP!

She was slapped out of the sky by the bear's giant macadamia nut claws.

Kikyo crashed through the walls of another gingerbread home, the gingerbread family inside looked shocked.

“Sorry, you guys might wanna run, giant bear cake,” she said before quickly taking to the skies again and summoning her sword.

“I'm gonna eat you!” she said confidently.

The cake bear stood on its hind legs, took a step towards her, and brought both claws down. Kikyo dodged and slashed with her sword, she smiled as it cut through easily. But from the 'wound' a gout of icing shot forth, she closed her mouth and turned her head, but the icing seemed to be alive! It pried at her until it found its way inside. Immediately Kikyo felt her stomach fill, to a painful degree. She disengaged and took shelter behind a cookie rock. She massaged her now hyper distended gut.

“Wh-what was that?” she said incredulously, “I don't think even I can handle that much...” the swelling started to go down as her Mazoku form burned off the easily accessible magic first. It was rather slow, since Mazoku forms were meant to be quite mana efficient, since unlike Magical Girl transformations it was the human form Kikyo took that was the transformation, the Mazoku one being what she thought of as 'herself.'

Wait a moment, Magical Girl transformation! Kikyo thought. They were still too magically efficient... She thought back on the information she had. Stagnation Conversion, pushing past physical and magical limits in exchange for one's form and life. Magical Girl transformations, altering one's body by converting it into a new form that improved abilities. Kikyo looked at the thread, the magical data of a girl who had been broken down by Stagnation Conversion and put back together with the Fixed Recovery Disk...Wait, wouldn't that mean... But she'd need some kind of medium or anchor like a magical girl emblem or the disk, her eyes settled on her sword.

“It's perfect...Let's give it a shot!” she said resolutely.

Kikyo stood up, and held her sword in front of her. A complex array of magic circles in three dimensions flared to life around her, converging on the sword. After a moment it glowed with complex symbols like those on her clothes in Mazoku mode. She held the sword aloft.

“To fight a giant, on must grasp its weakness and know one's own strength! Therefore to devour the devourer a new body must be made!” she chanted. Energy like lightning struck the blade, and Kikyo held it to her person, the two combined. Kikyo's form swelled, shifting from humanoid to draconic! The light of her transformation faded, sure enough! A dragon!

Kikyo roared at the cake bear, the cake bear roared back. She lunged at it, attempting to bite it, but it fired back a stream of confections. Kikyo caught them all in her draconic maw, the incredulously inefficient body absorbed the attack without an issue, in fact thus far the dragon was on the lean side!

The cake bear took a step back, then gave a fearsome roar, this time raising both paws and sending twin torrents of treats directly into the dragon's mouth.

Kikyo was pushed back by the physical force of the torrents, but she focused her eyes on the bear and took a step forward.

The dragon body began to swell.

Kikyo took another step forward, flapping her wings trying to buffet the bear. This burned quite a bit of energy, but not enough to offset the bear's ferocious onslaught, a layer of baby fat built up around the dragon's joints.

Kikyo took another step forward,now right up in the bear's face. She tried to go for the bear's neck, but the torrents forced her head back, so she attacked with her front claws. The bear's attack was coming back to bite it, her added weight gave terrible force to the blows.

From those wounds new torrents assailed dragon-Kikyo! The dragon became comically chubby, but that wouldn't stop her! She grappled with the bear, who now seemed afraid, Kikyo had grown accustomed to the torrents now, and began eating faster than than the bear could attack. Finally able to use her jaws on the offensive, Kikyo took a huge chunk out of the bear's neck!

This time no additional torrent was born, and Kikyo continued her attack,devouring the bear's head! The torrents ceased entirely, Kikyo had won!

She roared triumphantly, and finished off the remains of the bear. As she stood reveling in her victory, the dragon began to thin a little.

'Ah, I'd better collect the thread!' Kikyo thought, and reverted to her usual form. She was a little disappointed that there was no change to her appearance, but there was no time to dwell on that, she quickly gathered the remaining thread, and as she held the disk to do so, a great portion of mana came out of her own body as well.

“Ah, I guess that would make sense since I did eat the bear...” she said with an embarrassed smile.

The disk made a chattering sound!

“I did it!” Kikyo said proudly, as the form of Ito Juuki absorbed the disk.

“Huh? What did you do?” the girl asked timidly.

Kikyo picked her up and gave her a piggy back ride, “I got you out of the Lesser Dark Mirror that's what!”

“O-oh! Thank you very much!”

Kikyo smiled widely, “Don't mention it! It was so much fun!”

Juuki looked confused, but if her savior was happy that was a good thing.

“I'm gonna take you to the Greater Mirror, we're going to meet up with my friends and your friends who they rescued!” was Kikyo's chipper explanation.

“Really? Everyone else too?!”

“Of course!” some time passed as Kikyo continued walking towards the Greater Mirror, “Um, Juuki-chan can I ask a favor?”

“Huh? Oh, um, sure, what is it?”

“Sometime, can you make a candy country again?”

Juuki didn't know what that meant, but she did want to give something back to the person who had gotten her out of the nightmare she had been having for so long.

“Um...I'll do my best!”

“Eh?! Really!?” Kikyo said excitedly.

“I'll figure something out!” Juuki said with determination. To be honest, though she had been surprised by the request, she had interest of her own in such a thing. Of course not to the same degree as Kikyo, but she didn't realize that yet.