Chapter 28 – A Glimpse of True Justice

The karaoke session ended, and we spilled out of the fancy building and back into the glittering Ginza night. The girls were still buzzing, laughing as they argued about who sang the best. "It was totally Chiyoko-san," Miki declared. "No contest." "Yeah, but I had the most passion!" Akane shot back, throwing a dramatic pose. "You guys just can't handle my raw vocal power!" The mood was light, easy. It was the feeling of a group of friends who were finally comfortable with each other. The city around us was a sea of peaceful, unaware lights. Just another Friday night. Then the first boom hit. A series of distant, concussive booms echoed through the city. "Whoa, what was that?" Akane's playful grin vanished in an instant. Her head snapped toward the waterfront, her whole body tensing up. "The docks," Aoi said, her voice already cold and analytical as she scanned the skyline. "Energy readings are off the charts. Multiple non-human signatures. The energy is wild and chaotic. It's a large-scale monster attack." Before I could even think of what to do, a brilliant, pure-white flare shot into the night sky. It pulsed once, then twice, a beacon of raw, overwhelming power that seemed to scream for attention. "The Aegis of Light," Homura whispered, her voice tight with a tension I hadn't heard since her corruption. She knew that magical signature. It belonged to the city's official protectors. "A real fight! Let's go check it out!" Akane said, already bouncing on the balls of her feet, her knuckles cracking. "Wait!" Aoi commanded, her voice sharp as glass. She turned to me, her sapphire eyes looking for orders. "What should we do, Master?" This was a golden opportunity dropped right into our laps. A chance to see our future enemies in action and gather real, firsthand intel that no amount of spying could ever get us. "Go," I said, my voice low and firm. "But stay hidden. We will only watch. Do not engage or reveal yourself, no matter what!" "Understood," Aoi nodded, her face grim. In a flash, they transformed into their battle uniforms. The laughing, joking girls from the karaoke bar were gone. They moved with a silent, deadly efficiency, like a pack of dark predators, closing in on a battle that wasn't theirs. I followed along on the ground, Gemgem giving me a little boost of speed and stealth to keep up. "A wise decision," Gemgem's voice echoed in my mind, cold and clinical. "Direct observation is the most effective method of intelligence gathering. Let us see if this generation's Aegis is as formidable as their reputation suggests." We reached the industrial waterfront and found a spot on a high warehouse roof that gave us a perfect view of the chaos below. A massive, nine-headed hydra was on a rampage, spitting streams of acid that sizzled and ate through shipping containers. Its roars shook the entire dock. Swarming around it was a filthy tide of smaller, writhing creatures. "Nine-headed Hydra! Only A-ranked or above, like me, can deal with a disaster at that level, Master." Homura murmurs, her eyes not leaving the battle. "Slime Fiends," Aoi breathed, her voice tight with disbelief. "There must be dozens of them. How is that even possible?" "Eww, that thing was tough, its gooey body absorbing most of my punches, and its acid could melt steel." Akage groaned, tightening her fist. "It had taken all four of us working together just to pin it down and destroy just a single one, Master." Miki chimed in. Down below, there were at least ten of them, and they were swarming over everything, overwhelming the dockworkers who hadn't managed to escape. But in the middle of it all, an island of brilliant white light in a sea of darkness, was the Aegis of Light. The aura emanating from them was incredible and terrifying. They were on a completely different level from any magical girl we had encountered before. "Look, oh my god..." Miki whispered, her usual bubbly confidence gone, replaced by pure, slack-jawed awe. A warrior built like a mountain, Magical Golem, stood her ground as the hydra charged. Her skin had turned into seamless, granite-like armor that glowed with golden runes. The hydra's main head, bigger than a car, slammed into her. The impact would have leveled a building. But Golem didn't even flinch. She just grunted, the concrete cracking under her feet as she dug in. With a raw, guttural roar, she caught the creature's jaws in her bare hands. For a second, it was a stalemate. The muscles in her stone arms bulged with strain. Then, with an earth-shattering cry, she tore the hydra's head clean off its neck and threw it aside. "Holy shit," Akane breathed, her bravado completely gone. "She's... she's stronger than me. I can't imagine soloing a big monster like that." "Analysis," Gemgem stated, its voice a flat, unimpressed hum. "The Golem's power is purely defensive and kinetic. Brute force against brute force. Crude, but effective in this scenario." Before the hydra could even start to regrow, a blur of motion zipped past, too fast to follow. It was Magical Sylph. A dozen blades of shimmering wind sliced through the air. In one elegant, impossibly fast pass, she severed the hydra's eight other heads. Its giant body collapsed, its dark magic fading into the night. The slime horde, seeing its leader fall, let out a gurgling screech and surged forward. But Magical Valkyrie, her face a mask of cold, righteous fury, simply raised a hand. A spear of pure, blinding light formed above her, so pure it almost hurt our eyes to look at. "Judgment!" she cried. The spear shot down, exploding in the middle of the horde. The blast of holy energy vaporized a third of them instantly, leaving nothing but smoking craters on the ground. The rest of the slimes scattered, but they didn't get far. Magical Pixie, the healer, created a shimmering golden barrier that trapped them. Any slime that touched it sizzled and paralyzed. Beside her, Magical Oracle stood perfectly still, her eyes glowing with a soft, prophetic light. "Golem, two are escaping through the drainage pipe on your left," the Oracle's calm voice echoed across the battlefield. Without even looking, Golem slammed her stone foot down, crushing the pipe and everything inside it. "Sylph, three more are burrowing under the main crane." "On it," Sylph's voice chirped. A miniature tornado erupted at the base of the crane, sucking the slimes out and tearing them to shreds. It was over in less than two minutes. A threat that would have been a grueling, exhausting, all-night battle for my team, they had dismantled with terrifying, almost casual efficiency. They were a perfectly synchronized weapon, guided by a future-seeing eye. My girls were dead silent. The fun, competitive energy from the karaoke bar was a distant memory. Now, there was only a cold, sobering understanding of what they were up against. "Conclusion," Gemgem stated, its tone devoid of emotion but heavy with implication. "The Aegis of Light operates with a level of synergy and power that exceeds our previous projections by a factor of three." "A direct confrontation under current conditions would result in a 74% probability of our team's total defeat." As the Aegis of Light began tending to the wounded, their battle auras fading, the Oracle suddenly froze. She didn't turn or move, but her head tilted just slightly. Her glowing eyes seemed to look right past the chaos, past the warehouses, directly up to the rooftop where we were hidden. A slow, chilling, and utterly confident smirk spread across her lips. Aoi gasped and instinctively pulled the others deeper into the darkness. "She saw us." "No, she didn't see us," Homura whispered, her voice trembling. "She knew we would be here. This whole thing... it was both performance and a message for us." The message was crystal clear. "We know who you are. We know you're watching. And this is just a taste of what we can do!" For the very first time, my Fallen Stars looked at the enemy and understood that they might not be strong enough to win.