"Kari?" Rocky's concerned voice shook Kari like a rogue tsunami would batter the hull of a ship.

"I'm alright," Kari assured him, walking towards the waters.

The monster was gone and so were the apparitions of magical girls from earlier. Harsh waves crashed against the shore, leaving behind corpses and debris from the ruined fleet.

Judging by Jormungandr's burnt body, Flare had killed it. If she wanted a seraph to turn into a god, then why?

To keep me from gaining those points? Kari wondered.

No, not a cruel enough reason. Flare moved pieces on a chessboard with surgical precision and intent. There had to be another reason why. Until recently, Kari couldn't have fathomed that she would turn Makina into a magical girl to use against her. Forfeiting the ring at the time proved to be a big mistake.

Rocky flew after her and said, "You were spacing out. What happened?"

"Not sure what I saw. Inyanga was just here, but I couldn't tell if she was a hallucination or a trick," Kari explained.

It became immediately obvious that mentioning the magical girl Rocky formerly served was a bad idea.

"You saw Inyanga? Are you telling me you saw Inyanga? Did you really, really, really?" Rocky asked, latching onto her face.

"Yes, I did!" She pulled him off like a mask and held the anthem still. "But that doesn't mean she's alive. All I saw were memories I think. I'm sorry about your old pal… looked like she went through hell."

Rocky's ears went limp as his own memories of the incident were likely resurfacing. Kari sat down on the sand and placed him on her lap. She smoothed out the fur on his cheeks, then massaged the ears like playing with a little pet. It was the slow moments like these that she missed, and if things had gone differently, they wouldn't have been butting heads lately.

Night had fallen. They could only tell through the stormy weather because it was darker than usual.

"I can't remember the last time I saw stars. I thought I'd be glad not having Flare always peeping in, but I'm starting to have a hard time picturing what the sun and moon used to look like," Kari mused aloud, gazing up at the churning clouds.

"Hey… What do you think of Inyanga?" Rocky suddenly asked, clearly still wallowing on the subject.

"What do I think, huh?" She thought for only a second because the memories were still fresh in her mind. "I think Inyanga was trying too hard to save everyone. That magic sigil she popped to save three kids? Gone to waste. Would've been an extra skill she could have used later. Isis and Ogun died because she was too hasty. If either of them lived, maybe they could have taken on Flare together. Well, even after what she did and tried to do, she was a better hero than I could ever be."

As that compliment left her mouth, Rocky began to cheer up again.

"My turn for a question: why didn't you tell me? If I knew back then that Flare was lying about South Africa, I wouldn't have gone along with her," Kari said.

"I saw first hand how strong Flare was. To her, every magical girl between you and Inyanga were dolls to play with. When she picked you to be a magical girl and paired us up, it made me really happy to be able to be with someone again. But I was sad at the same time because I couldn't be sure if she'd discard you like all the others," Rocky explained, shuddering as he thought back.

Every single one of those magical girls that showed up was someone Flare had forced the ring on and later perished. Now that ring was on Kari, and she intended to be the last one.

Kari went over to rummage through Admiral Hackman's body but found nothing worth taking. Lying next to him, half-buried in the sand, was the gun he had tried to fire earlier. She brushed the grains away and her hands ejected the magazine as though it had done so hundreds of times before.

Odd. Despite never touching a firearm until today, Kari somehow knew the ins and outs of the gun. There were only four shots left. Not a lot, but still worth holding onto.

Erica's voice echoed in her mind. Your blood is like poison to monsters.

The key was in her blood which they also said was much different from the other magical girls. It wasn't as though she could fish the scientists out of the water to learn more. Those answers were at the depths of the sea now. What Kari did know was that the ammunition treated with magical girl blood was able to kill head hounds, as well as severely incapacitate larger monsters and magical girls.

"Rocky, you anthems are always making things come out of existence. Can you stow things away like you do with sigils?" Kari asked.

"You're going to use your system's assistant as a glorified backpack? Fine. Give it here." Rocky vanished the gun the instant she put it in his paws.

When she wanted it, he was able to materialize it into her hand just like a sigil. Perfect. This was going to be the ace in Kari's sleeve in case she needed it.

According to Rocky, there were two seraphs left. The one in Izumo city had moved to Fukuyama while Kari and Flare were in captivity, and the other was still in Hokkaido.

Kari and Rocky left the destruction behind, making their way towards the city of Fukuyama in Hiroshima prefecture. Among the members of Messiah, as she had learned earlier, both Hurricane and Chu Hua were still alive. Chances were, the two maintained their vigil over the seraphs. She was no doubt going to run into one of them.

The real question was where Flare and Makina were, and what they were doing?

"You know, you're not as devastated about Makina being a magical girl as I expected," Rocky pointed out as if reading her mind.

"I am devastated," Kari said in a somber tone. "I've never seen Makina look at me like that before, and it hurts so bad that I want to just lie down and cry. But You know who won't be lying down and crying? Flare. After seeing how Flare manipulated Inyanga and the others in South Africa, I know she's doing the same with me and Makina. I can't just do nothing."

Things weren't supposed to go down this way. Kari was supposed to kill the leaders of Messiah and Flare would leave her alone. Now, Makina was a magical girl, and the two of them were at odds with one another.

Where did everything start going wrong? If she had kept Sachi and Candy close prior to the apocalypse, maybe the latter wouldn't have been captured. Or maybe she should have taken her chances fighting Flare right then and there with Sachi after the Bhairava seraph. Not to mention, Jade was another formidable ally lost. There was no seeking forgiveness from her after their last encounter.

On their way to Fukuyama, they noticed that many cities were unharmed by the apocalypse or incursion. Other than ground zero in Tokyo and cities that were hit by a seraph, one could mistakenly have assumed monsters didn't exist at all.

"Don't you think it's weird?" Kari asked. "Flare was so concerned about starting the apocalypse, but we've dropped the seraphs that had the biggest risk of achieving god status. Kyoto, Osaka, Fukuoka— places where people were packed tighter than sardines for an easy feast," Kari said.

Rocky was trying hard to connect the dots, seeing as how deeply furrowed his brows were. "If you put it that way… It doesn't make sense for there to be so many seraphs since they'd be competing against each other, right?."

"Unless they aren't," suggested to his horror.

The anthem gasped. "You're saying those seraphs are connected or something? Like maybe all of them are contributing to each other? That can't be good! They must be very close then!"

That was exactly what Kari thought, too. However, Jade was convinced that magical girls were the real entree, which made a lot more sense given how much Flare baited Messiah to come with the apocalypse. After messing up South Africa, she probably had a good idea how many magical girls and people were needed to fuel up a seraph.

They arrived at Fukuyama and were surprised to find it still intact, if not mostly evacuated due to the large, cocoon-like egg at the northernmost edge of the city. All that remained was a large presence of an anxious JSDF unit who had formed a perimeter around the monster, which sat in a field behind an elementary school building they had commandeered.

This must have been as far as the seraph went before cocooning, but did that mean it was going to turn into a god? No. Rocky would be much more terrified if that were the case.

Although the seraph was here, a magical girl was nowhere to be seen. Many monsters, likely stray spawn seeing as their numbers weren't substantial to be an incursion, littered various pockets of the city.

"I want to find out what happened while we were trapped on the ship, so I need you to do something I haven't made you do in a long time," Kari said to her anthem.

"Oh! What is it?" Rocky asked, eager to serve again.

It wasn't hard to find a bag in the city to stuff Rocky into, and Kari already looked the part of a disheveled and lost girl. She switched on [Incognito] after what felt like ages, then walked towards the school.

"I really don't like this idea…" he groaned from inside the bag.

"We need info, and I'm not getting any when the JSDF has me marked as enemy number one. They can't know you're an anthem, so stay still and pretend to be a stuffed animal. I'll get you something nice later," Kari promised.

The road leading up to the school had several head hounds lying dead, filled with more bullets than Kari cared to count. Further down, one tank and two armored vehicles formed a makeshift barricade in front of the building's entrance. Someone on the rooftop of the single-story building met her eyes, at which the tank hatch popped open and a JSDF officer hopped out. Three more joined him, and they quickly escorted her inside to the shoe lockers.

"I'm Colonel Inaba, but you can call me Naba like the rest of my boys. You did well to survive, but it isn't any safer here," the officer said.

Naba was likely referring to the seraph egg outside.

A private came by to hand her a canteen of water, but the young man flinched as their hands brushed against each other. Although his reaction was a little odd, she thought nothing of it for someone who likely hadn't seen the opposite sex in ages. The eyes, however, told a different story.

"Thanks," Kari said, then took several gulps before continuing. "By not safe, you mean that big egg behind the school? Don't suppose you guys have a magical girl on speed dial for it?"

Both the officer and private traded uneasy glances.

"Why don't you get cleaned up in the bathroom? I'll see what we can scrounge up for you to eat. Private Juuzo here will make sure you get what you need." Naba ushered her off and returned outside.

The subordinate named Juuzo led Kari to the bathroom first. Thankfully, the plumbing still worked. She was able to wash off much of the grime and feel somewhat clean. While hunched over the sink, she noticed Private Juuzo by the door, glancing over his shoulder at her.

"It's rude to stare at a girl like that," Kari teased him.

"Sorry," Juuzo said. "You look like my baby sister, Mikan. She's always got a scowl on her face."

"Your sister doing alright?" she asked.

"Flew to China with our parents before the apocalypse hit. They begged me to come along, but as you can see, I can't just leave."

They went to a classroom next where all the desks had been pushed up to the walls and stacked on top of each other. Sleeping bags were laid out in an orderly fashion. Two soldiers were playing cards on the ground. At the corner of the room, behind the teacher's desk, was a pile of bagged food of the nonperishable kind and were likely picked up from the city.

Private Juuzo fished out from the pile a couple of glossy bags with small labels and instructions on them. When he handed the bags to Kari, she wasn't quite sure what to do with any of it. However, her hands seemingly moved with the knowledge of how to prepare the MREs.

"Huh. Have you eaten MREs before?" Juuzo asked, causing her hands to freeze up.

"I-I saw a little bit on TV before. Can you make it for me instead in case I mess up?" Kari pushed the bags over to him.

Juuzo about breaking open each bag, and putting the containers of what was inside into a much larger, green bag. After adding water inside and shaking it, steam began to billow out like a kettle.

When it was all done, there were two oval containers of rice. One had teriyaki chicken and sauce over it, and the other was full of mixed vegetables and fish. They didn't quite smell like home cooking, but Kari couldn't help digging right in. It only occurred to her, while scarfing them down, that she wasn't given much of anything on the ship.

"You keep eating so fast like that, and you'll choke." Juuzo chuckled, then sat down across from her. "Couldn't help but notice your hands felt pretty calloused. Were you out there this entire time with those monsters around?"

Now was probably a good chance to get some information.

"Yeah… I got by sticking low though. Some cities aren't as lucky as Fukuyama. Heard we were getting some international help. Is that true?" Kari asked, feigning hopefulness.

"Who did you hear that from?" Juuzo tensed up and blinked suspiciously.

"A friend from Okinawa. She texted me about aircraft carriers in the distance," she said.

"I don't know about help, but Naba told us they were doing everything but that. Not sure if it matters now though, since that fleet went dark. Intelligence isn't sure what happened to them other than magical girls and a giant sea monster showing up there." He leaned back and gazed up at the ceiling.

The spite in his voice and subsequent relief about the fleet's destruction was proof the JSDF was against the foreign military operation. Hackman was never here to help Japan anyway, only to capture magical girls like Pokemon to bring back for experiments.

"What about magical girls? You guys were spooked when I brought it up earlier." Kari pressed him.

"You didn't hear?" Juuzo chewed on his lower lip. "Prime Minister Naoki committed suicide after issuing an apology last week at the National Diet."

"What…?" She stopped eating and searched the private's face for a lie.

"A memo in his handwriting was found with his body. It read that he was wrong about magical girls all this time, and that they weren't to be trusted. No one's verified the letter's authenticity, but after seeing what magical girls are doing all over the country, it's hard not to believe him. All this time, we've been propping them up as heroes… turns out they're just as bad as the monsters."

Flare must be pissed, but this wasn't good for anyone. Makina was going to be branded an enemy by the country since she was a magical girl now. There would be no future for them even if they stopped the apocalypse.

Rocky started poking Kari's back from inside the backpack. It wasn't fair that she was eating, and he was suffocating on an empty stomach.

"I don't mean to be a glutton, but is it alright if I grab some snacks from that pile?" Kari pointed to their rations.

"Knock yourself out. Go ahead and pick something, then I'll bring you to another room. We can let you bunk with a bunch of smelly soldiers." Juuzo grinned.

Kari put some bags of chips and cookies into her backpack for Rocky to eat, then followed the soldier out in the hallway.

"Hang in there until tomorrow," he continued, "Naba will have one of us drive you and the other out of the city."

Not that Kari had any intentions of leaving anyway. She was going to have to take care of that seraph one way or another—

"Wait, did you just say 'other'?" Kari asked.

"Yeah. You actually aren't the first survivor that came to us. There's another girl here, but she wasn't as banged up as you. Doesn't say a word though, and Naba thinks she's a mute," the private said.

She stopped walking and shuddered. "Mute?"

"Yeah. You know, one of those who can't talk." He opened the door to the next classroom and Kari locked eyes with Chu Hua, who was standing with her back pressed to the window.