This is the end of a journey, and the beginning of a world.
“Oops, I guess I did it again…”
The fiery redhead—Homura—seemed to feel only the slightest hint of remorse over what she had just done.
Before their eyes, the Dark Lord’s castle had gone up in a fiery blaze.
The scene looked like something you would expect to see in a theme park attraction. Five bruised and battered girls—or, more accurately, four girls and one girl-shaped mechanical life-form—craned their necks, staring upward at the surreal sight.
The castle was massive and imposing, nestled into a fortified rampart that rose grandly from the earth as if to cleave the land in half.
The Dark Lord’s castle was embedded directly into the ramparts and protruded outward defensively, a testament to the Dark Lord’s commitment to repelling invaders into his lands with his own two hands.
“What do you mean, ‘oops’?! I told you to take out the Dark Lord! Who said anything about burning his whole castle down?!”
Unfortunately for the Dark Lord and his convictions, this unyielding fortress, which could easily be described as “impregnable,” was now spitting out massive plumes of smoke in all directions, its master having been slain mere moments ago.
“All that precious loot, up in flames. Just because you get loopy every time you see fire. Seek help, you idiot!” shouted the mad scientist of the group.
The target of her rage was Homura, who had been responsible for setting this blaze.
“It’s not like I can help it! It just feels so good when it happens!”
“Well, the next time it happens, I’m gonna give you a piercing with the biggest needle I can find—right through that stupid skull of yours, you deviant!”
“Deviant…! That’s rich coming from a freak like you who likes to experiment on humans!”
“Yeah, yeah, keep talking, tits-for-brains.”
As the two argued, they began to square off against each other. It was a verbal sparring match for the title of worst of the worst, lowest of the low, and it was just about to enter round two: the “shut up before I make you shut up” phase.
“I’ve had enough of you! For the sake of all humanity, it’s time I finally melted that nasty mouth of yours shut!”
Flames swelled up around Homura’s fist, which was already stained black like coal. Their surroundings were lit up by incandescent flames, the air shimmering in the scorching heat.
“Bring it. I’ll turn you into a B movie monster of the week and hang you up in my collection!”
As Psycho continued to mouth off, she waved a sinister-looking dagger in the air.
The gesture was more than just a threat.
The blade left a gash in empty space. Darkness peered out from the newly formed crack, watching them.
A moment later, a misshapen hand appeared from within the shadowy crevice. The hand, which was too large and warped to be human, grabbed the edge of the crevice and began to audibly pry it open.
As this thing, whatever it was, attempted to leave its dimensional rift, a third girl suddenly stepped into the middle of this pointless altercation.
“All right, a fight! Count me in!” shouted Proto—the mechanical life-form—tossing herself into this powder keg like another lit fuse. “We can finally settle which of us is superior: me or you inferior carbon-based life-forms!”
As the android raised her fist into the air, the metal shard embedded in her bracelet shimmered with cold blue light.
Any one of these girls could have reduced a whole country to ruins if she decided to fight seriously. Their little spat, however, was brought to an end before it could even get started.
“A contest for dominance, you say…?” said a fourth participant in the madness. “Indeed. Perhaps I should join as well.”
“F…fine, I’ll let you off with a warning, for now.”
“Next time I’m gonna massacre you.”
“You got lucky.”
As soon as the deadly assassin, Jin, announced her intention to enter the fray, the other three girls quickly called a truce, and the dimensional rift hastily zipped shut.
Jin had drawn her katana, a devilish glint in her red eyes.
The three girls turned away, avoiding eye contact and trying to seem nonchalant, but inside they were shitting bricks.
“Enough… This is frivolous,” Jin said. “Look at Tsutsumi. She is hungry. Let’s finish this up quickly.”
“My tummy…is empty…,” announced Tsutsumi, the living bioweapon.
Tsutsumi’s stomach rumbled. Her voice sounded soft and wispy, but her tone made it clear—she was ready to eat, and she was ready now.
“Fine… Let’s get on with it, then. The Goddess wanted us to defeat the Dark Lord and save the world, right?”
“Yep, so that just leaves the ‘saving the world’ part. Now that the Dark Lord is taken care of, we’re free to save the hell out of this world.”
The girls couldn’t help but grin. It was time to save the world. And they all knew what that meant. The path was clear.
“Let’s burn injustice to a crisp!”
“You’ve really got a one-track mind.”
“Well, what did you expect?”
“Hey, you do you, I guess.”
They wanted to live selfishly, egotistically, and be absolutely true to themselves. That was the dream, and these misfits had decided that their path to achieving it would be to save the world.
“We should take a commemorative photo while we’re here. In front of the Dark Lord’s castle, while it’s still on fire.” Psycho pulled her smartphone from her pocket.
The path might have been clear, but they still had time for a little detour.
“I don’t know. Taking a commemorative photo in front of someone’s burning house seems kind of wrong.”
At the very least, it didn’t seem right.
“But check out the lighting! It’ll be a great picture.”
Between the rising sun and the raging conflagration, the lighting on the Dark Lord’s castle was indeed gorgeous.
“I guess that’s one word for it…,” said Homura, starting to fix her hair, which had gotten disheveled during the fight.
Whatever little thimbleful of guilt Homura had originally felt seemed to have evaporated completely by this point.
“Speaking of which, why did you bring your phone anyway?”
“When else was I going to get a chance to use it? The whole reason I saved the battery for so long was for this moment,” bragged Psycho, as if it were obvious.
For Psycho, these heinous little touches were the spice of life.
“You’re a monster, you know that…?” said Homura, glancing at Psycho and wrinkling her nose.
“Fine, then I won’t show you the picture afterward.”
Homura’s tune immediately changed. “A commemorative photo! In front of someone’s burning house, you say?! This is so much fun,” she shouted enthusiastically. Her stock as a human being had just taken a rapid plunge.
“Who’s the monster now…?”
Each girl thought the other was the bigger piece of trash, but in truth it was a dead tie. They were both complete and total scumbags.
The five girls crowded together, grinning broadly as the Dark Lord’s castle loomed in the background, amid the rising sun and the burning flames.
Here in this strange world, there was no way to actually reproduce a photo. Once the battery in Psycho’s smartphone ran out, they would never be able to look at that image again.
“Say cheese!”
The shutter snapped.
But the girls decided to commemorate it anyway—this moment between the great things they had done so far and the great things they were going to do in the future.
“After all…this day was a long time coming,” said Homura.
“Tell me about it.”
Once the photo was taken, the girls allowed themselves to wax nostalgic. The road they had journeyed through this strange world had been hazardous and bloody. And yet, looking back, it had all been worth it. A struggle they had undertaken to live their lives their own way.
As they stood before the Dark Lord’s burning castle, the five girls reflected on the road thus far.