Chapter 4: Eat Your Cake and Have It Too

Utena's phone buzzed with a new text. Her mother had no need to text her at home, which left a poor selection of options.

> Loco: Here's another one of Loco's songs! Check it out~

According to Leberblume, watching and complimenting all of Loco's songs was of vital importance. Which was arguably less unpleasant than the rest of Enormita's business, at least.

She really hoped no one was monitoring her messages. If the wrong person read them... she didn't want to think about what might happen.

> Utena: Oh, wow... Your voice is so captivating, Loco

> Loco: That's a genuine idol for you!

> Loco: Hey, speaking of stage presence. Have you picked out a title yet?

> Utena: Ah... I'm still working on that...

Venalita had brought her some books to reference, but thinking of a title for herself... Talking to people had been hard even before all of this.

What would a good person have done? Fought Leber and gotten her mother to safety? Committed ritual suicide on the spot? There were things someone could have done, but she couldn't imagine being that someone.

Because she was weak, she'd hurt Sulfur, and she was going to have to keep hurting the magical girls.

Because she was weak, and... because Venalita was right about her. Because she really did think like a villain.

"Utena?" her mother called from the doorway. "I'm going shopping... If you hear anything strange in the next hour, leave the house and call the police. Okay?"

"Y-Yeah... I got it. Thanks..."

Her mother had described the incident as a break-in. She'd avoided mention of the specifics, and Utena hadn't asked why nothing seemed to be missing.

The strangeness of the incident seemed to have left her particularly rattled. Utena wouldn't let it happen again.

Her mother's footsteps grew distant, then vanished.

She was supposed to be studying, wasn't she? She pulled out her textbook and stared at it. Her eyes trudged their way back and forth and down the page, she tried to remember what it had said and came up blank.

Maybe reading something else would help ease her into it. She went to her collection of magical girl manga and reviewed the selection. So many of them didn't feel right to read right now, but her eyes fell on one that had always made her feel... weird. The one about the girl whose magic made her bleed from the eyes.

"Ooh, are you looking for inspiration for what to do to the magical girls?"

Utena spun around to face the source. "V-Venalita? How long have you been there?"

"I always keep tabs on my partners," Venalita assured her. "But you know, I am worried about you. You promised you'd keep fighting Tres Magia, but you've been sitting around for three days! Surely you haven't found yourself insufficiently... motivated?"

"N-Not at all!" Utena protested. "It's just, after how last time went..."

"Oh, yeah, the skewering." Venalita glanced at Utena's stomach. "Did you get a cool scar?"

"Um, not really...?" Her healing had erased most signs of the injury. "But fighting them again like that sounds r-risky..."

"That just means you should try splitting 'em up!" Venalita suggested. "You can't go under the radar like Leberblume, but I'm sure you can figure something out. And if things go wrong, you're getting the hang of making portals, right?"

"K-Kind of?" She was making progress, but she was a lot slower with them than Leberblume. "Wouldn't it be safer to fight alongside Leberblume and Loco Musica...?"

The idea of being safer around either of them sounded ridiculous. But regardless of everything else, Leber did successfully rescue her.

"They've both got plenty of business to take care of elsewhere," Venalita reminded her. "You don't want to just wait for them to finish, right? Come on, let's go!"

Venalita summoned a small portal and floated into it. Was it going to keep watching her to know where to reappear, or did it have some other way of tracking her? Neither option sounded appealing.

Either way, she couldn't keep putting this off. Utena stepped outside and cast a wary look at her surroundings. If she transformed in the middle of town, she'd risk the magical girls converting on her location. But if she went to the outskirts... maybe they wouldn't all show up at once.

She made her way across town. It had already been hard to shake the fear of people's gazes, as if they might be judging her for some transgression she'd committed unknowingly, just from being there. And now she knew she'd transgressed. Would they figure it out? Would they smell her guilt and corruption?

She wasn't sure where she was going, but her feet carried her along until a familiar sight came into view. The Minakami family's shrine.

Maybe this was what she needed. Utena walked towards the offering box, formulating a prayer as she reached forward. Please, help me be better than this, not someone who does things like...

"Ooh, are you praying for success in battle?"

Utena yelped and dropped the coin. "V-Vena! What are you..."

"Relax, no one's close enough to see. Anyway, your friends are doing well! They even sent me a photo..."

Venalita held out its phone, and automatically, Utena looked at the screen. A photo of a magical girl in lime green robes, covered in blood, left hand clutching at the stump where the right should have been.

This was no place to be looking at something like that. Utena tried to avert her gaze, but couldn't tear her eyes away from the girl's agonized face. So pained, so unlike a magical girl, so...

Something rippled through Utena, then poured out to wrap around her. Purple light filled her vision, and when it cleared, she had transformed.

"Wh-What?" Utena stammered. "How did..."

"Looks like that got you excited, huh?" Venalita stowed its phone. "Well, that should get the magical girls' attention. Good luck!"

The fairy floated up towards the shrine roof. Should she try to flee? No, Venalita wouldn't like that. And...

She felt something. Magic? Was one of them here?

"You! What are you doing here of all places?"

Utena recognized the voice before she turned around. Magia Azure.

"I-I..." For a moment, she was just Hiiragi Utena, standing before one of the magical girls she idolized, and horribly underdressed. But she couldn't be Utena, not right now. She needed to be...

That thing she'd become the first time they'd fought. The monster that taunted the magical girls and stole the eye of Magia Sulfur. The villain who did such awful things - and got to have so much fun.

Magia Azure didn't wait for an answer. She was already flying forward, her wand growing into a blade of ice.

Utena swung her riding crop at the closest thing in reach. The offering box swelled in size, growing wooden arms and legs, and let out a roar. It leaped between the two of them, and Azure's sword smashed into its body, coins tumbling out.

"How dare you profane this sacred site?"

She needed something else. What would make a good monster? How did this even work? Why was a flower stronger than an offering box?

A shelf held a row of kitsune masks. Would those be any better, somehow?

All she could do was try. She struck one of the masks, but... it didn't grow the way the other things had. It floated off the shelf, and as Utena's eyes returned to Azure, the mask flew towards her.

It latched onto Azure's face, sprouting belts to secure itself around its head and covering her eyes in the process. She gasped in shock, raising her sword towards the box monster, but its next strike knocked the blade out of her hands. It shoved her to the ground, pinning her by the wrists.

"E-Enough of this!" Azure shouted. "Release me!"

Utena circled the monster, then knelt down by Azure's head and ran her fingers from her right shoulder up her neck and across her ear. "I do admire your skill with that sword, Magia Azure. But now... There's nothing you can do, is there?"

She reached further, to squeeze Azure's right breast, eliciting a gasp from its owner. She felt her way along Azure's armpits and sides, then willed the monster to give her room to reach her lower body. She reached under Azure's dress to grasp her struggling thighs, then between them, an erection as rigid as the blade she'd held.

"What are you- Nnh!"

Utena spoke softly, just loud enough for Azure to hear. "It's exciting, isn't it? Being so powerless. Your whole body belongs to me, now. I could take as much as I want. But for someone so magnificent... Wouldn't it be a shame to go that far so soon?"

She stood, walked to where Azure's ice sword had fallen, and picked it up.

"Today, I'll take just a taste, and save the rest to enjoy later."

Azure's breaths turned heavy, fearful. "Wh... What?"

With one hand, Utena held Azure's right ankle steady. With the other, she carved into it. Azure howled in pain, as flesh, tendon, and bone split apart.

She sawed deeper, down to the Achilles tendon, then through it, and the foot fell fully free. Magia Azure's cries turned to whimpers as she tried to retract the maimed leg. The blood flow was already starting to slow - the thing magical healing could address.

Utena kept her grip on Azure's ankle, leaned in, and kissed it.

Azure shuddered and whimpered again. She had exhausted her supply of words.

Utena had not. Words from a variety of languages swirled through her thoughts - through whoever she was supposed to be right now. And from them, a title emerged.

Two other magical signatures were approaching. It was time to wrap this up.

"Farewell, Magia Azure," she announced. "When your friends arrive, tell them you lost to Magia Baiser."

Magia Azure made only noises in reply. Magia Baiser picked up her foot and walked away.

Venalita floated down to her. "Magia Baiser, huh? Nicely done. Now let's get outta here, and I'll walk you through your first embalming."

"O-Okay." Baiser nodded, her bravado slipping away. Out of Azure's presence, she didn't feel like Magia Baiser anymore.

Venalita created a portal in front of them, and together, they passed through it.