Chapter 3: A Plague on Both Your Houses

Kaoruko stared into the mirror, into the hole where her left eye had been.

Who the fuck did those bitches think they were?

Vatz floated out from behind her. "Okay. Now... focus on how your face is supposed to look."

Kaoruko closed her remaining eye and focused on how her missing one had looked. She reached for the magic coursing through her body, and with just a pinch of it, she painted an illusion.

Two eyes stared back at her in the mirror. Both blinked in unison, both rotated as she turned her head. But only one could see.

"I can work with this."

"Are you sure?" Vatz asked. "It's a weak spell, but maintaining it for hours will add up. And if you slip up..."

"I can handle it," Kaoruko growled. "I'm not gonna let people find out that Tenkawa Kaoruko lost an eye on the same day Magia Sulfur did. And I'm not taking any suspicious absences from school, either. It's just a few days until we can get me set up with a glass eye, right?"

"If it all goes well," Vatz replied. "But it won't be a perfect match..."

Kaoruko shrugged. "It'll be less noticeable. It's fine if people find out I lost the eye eventually as long as they don't know when. I bet I could gaslight 'em into thinking I've had the glass eye for years."

The fairy's plush face wrinkled. "That's really not how a magical girl should act, you know. Speaking of which... at the end of that fight, were you trying to use your special move?"

"What the FUCK?" Kaoruko shoved her face up to Vatz's. "You're complaining that I tried to bring out the big guns after I lost my fucking eye? If I'd done it before I got caught I wouldn't have gotten hurt at all!"

Vatz rubbed its hands nervously. "Y-Yes, but for the image we want to show our sponsors..."

"Our sponsors can lick the gunk out of my fucking eye socket!" Kaoruko's glare returned to the mirror. "I looked up that hooded girl, you know. Leberblume. Her organization loves chopping off bits of magical girls, and it sounds like they keep them as trophies. I am not holding back against those creeps!"

"I... can try to persuade them to accept a change in your image," Venz conceded. "It may cost us some of our funding..."

"Good," Kaoruko spat. "Do it."

Vatz floated away. Kaoruko dropped the spell and screamed.

---

Going to school required keeping the illusion active. Haruka and Sayo insisted on coming to her house to pick her up.

"Morning, Kaoruko!" Haruka called out with a wave, then switched to telepathy. "Your spell looks like it's working. How are you holding up?"

"Could be worse," Kaoruko replied. "The painkillers help, but it still stings like a bitch. We just have to crush those fuckers before they hurt anyone else."

"I can't believe we let that happen..." Sayo lamented. "If Magenta and I had been faster..."

Kaoruko glared at her. "Hey, I don't want to hear your fucking self-pity. I'm the one in charge of defense, and I'm done going into battles at half strength. Next time we fight, I'll smash 'em before they know what's going on."''

Sayo put her hands up in surrender. "I didn't mean it like that! But... if Vatz is fine with you doing that, it should make things a lot easier."''

"As if I give a shit about-"

A group of kids half their size zoomed past the trio. "Hey, look at those girls! Are they miming or something?"

Haruka knelt down next to the one who'd spoken. "Sometimes if you know someone well enough, you don't need words to convey what you're thinking."

"Wait, really?" She turned to the others. "See if you can guess what I'm thinking!"

The group ran off, and the trio sighed in relief.

---

Classes were... exhausting. She had to maintain the enchantment any time she might be seen, jagged shapes flashed in the missing half of her vision, and the painkillers gradually wore off over the course of the day. Maybe bringing more would have been worth the risk of getting caught.

"Hey, Kaoruko? You've been turning your head a lot..."

"It's the only way I can see the left side of the board!"

"I-I know, I just... wanted to make sure you knew."

"Right. Yeah. Sorry."

"I can tell you what it says, if that would help?"

"Sure. Thanks, Haruka."

Kaoruko glanced over at Haruka. She smiled, and Kaoruko couldn't help but return it.

---

"Hey, are you okay?"

Kaoruko looked around for the sound of Haruka's voice. Before she could respond, a girl further down the hallway replied.

"I-I'm fine... I didn't sleep well, that's all..."

Kaoruko recognized the girl's purple hair and nervous expression. She couldn't remember her name - she didn't seem to like attention.

"Oh, yeah, I hate it when that happens!" Haruka smiled. "If you need anything, let me know, okay?"

"Th-thanks..."

The girl shuffled away.

"Who was that?" Kaoruko asked.

"Her name's Hiiragi Utena," Haruka explained. "She looked stressed, so I wanted to check on her."

"Does she ever not look stressed?" Kaoruko asked. "Every time I've seen her, she's been jumpy as hell."

Haruka shrugged. "Sure, but... more than usual this time?"

"That's fair." Kaoruko switched to telepathy. "It'd be a bad time to have more people hanging around us right now, though, you know?"

"R-Right, you don't want them looking closely at you. I'll be careful!"

"Yeah. Thanks."

---

Kaoruko dismissed the enchantment, then swallowed a handful of pills and a glass of water. Finally free from keeping up appearances, at least for the moment.

The socket felt... icky. She cleaned and dried it as well as she could, then put on her eyepatch. Not a bad look, in spite of the circumstances.

The circumstances. Thinking back on what had happened made her blood boil. A moment of underestimating that girl had let her pull her apart like a stuffed animal, and then her friend bailed her out before they could kill her.

Her missing eye stared into the past, into the final moments of the fight. She saw herself get stabbed, but keep her wits, enough to finish enchanting her arms. They multiplied in size, each seizing one of the villains, squeezing them.

In the present, Kaoruko flopped into her bed. Her fingers slipped into her skirt, into her underwear, into herself. She crushed the pair, bones splintering and blood spurting out, and the pressure reverberated into her, erupting in a moan.

She squeezed harder, and they crumpled into paper, and she folded against herself, and then unfurled like a spring as excitement shot through her.

The sticky fluid on her hand wasn't blood. Not yet. But soon, she would fix that.