An actress in our midst! (web version)

“So you lost the attunement a few months after leaving the demon realm,” Jessica asked as she looked up from her notes.

The ever-frowning woman in front of her nodded.

“And Trish lost it after she got pregnant.”

This time, the woman scowled but still nodded.

“Hmm…” Jessica narrowed her eyes.

“Before you ask, no, I never got pregnant myself,” Sally interrupted before her former minion could get any ideas.

“Right, I figured.”

I would pity the child.

Jessica waved her hand as she looked back at her notes. “The other two lost it along with you… and the second generation lost it after Baugh told them the truth. Hmm…”

“I don’t know why you bother. We’re tried to figure it out in the past and couldn’t,” Sally said dismissively.

“A fresh perspective can help.” Jessica shrugged.

She said that, but she still felt that she was missing something. As far as she could tell, there were three separate conditions for triggering the attunement loss. Getting pregnant, learning the full truth, and… leaving the demon realm? Or perhaps getting into contact with the fifth weapon that was going out of control? One of those. Or maybe both of those. Or maybe something else entirely.

It was hard to pinpoint the specific conditions when they wanted to avoid triggering them.

And in the first place, if Jessica put aside her personal feelings, why would it be so bad if the magical girls lost their attunement? Individual demon generals were all stronger than any of the magical girls alone. They could easily protect the weapons from being stolen themselves.

She was still staunchly ignoring the brain-shattering reveal her friends had shoved into her face earlier today. Maybe she should address it at some point.

Maybe later.

“Well, there’s one more clue left,” Jessica said as she glanced at Hecate. “You said Pretty Frost is close to losing her attunement, right?”

“Yup! Pretty sure!” the youngest general replied.

“Any idea on the cause here?”

“Hmmmm… No? Maybe her original team told her something?”

Or maybe she’s pregnant, Jessica didn’t say out loud.

“Maybe. So anyway…” Jessica looked at Baugh. “What’s the plan for when she does lose the attunement?”

“Hope she finds a successor who will master the weapon before they get to her.” He shrugged.

“Seriously? Just hope

? Your plan is stupid.” She shook her head. “Why don’t we take a more active role in protecting the magical weapons anyway? Doing it this way is so risky!”

Baugh couldn’t help but sigh. “I already told you. We can’t openly ally with them or the vengeful demons will riot. It’s enough of an issue that the radical group is already making moves.”

“Okay, I get that! But we don’t need to do it openly! Just protect them from the shadows or something!”

“We can’t do that either…” He shook his head. “We would need to know their identities to keep an eye on them even in their civilian guise. But no matter what you try, you can’t find out their identities unless they themselves reveal it to you.”

Jessica frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s the strange side effect of the attunement. I’m still not sure how it works, but… yeah. The only way for us to find out their true identities is if they tell us themselves. Which I doubt they’ll ever do unless we reveal the truth to them… which would likely make them lose the attunement, causing even more problems.”

What a convoluted situation.

“Hmm. Alright. No problem. I already know their secret identities,” Jessica declared.

“Wha–” Baugh’s helmet swirled in Jessica’s direction. “How? When? How did you –”

She shrugged. “They outed themselves to me earlier today, so I know who they really are.”

Baugh stopped for a second, then glanced at Sally – whose expression was a mix of surprised and annoyed – before looking back at Jessica.

“Okay. That… That changes some things.” Baugh got up and began pacing around. “If we have a way to contact the magical girls without telling them the whole truth and making them lose the attunement and without alerting the vengeful faction, we can better coordinate against the radicals.” He began nodding to himself. “This is good. Yes, this will make things easier.”

“Except there’s still a chance that the vengeful faction finds out,” Sally interrupted, like the rude bitch that she was. “And if that happens, we’re completely screwed.”

Baugh slumped and Jessica scowled.

“Are they really that big of a deal? I haven’t even seen any of them,” she tried to argue.

“You have.”

Jessica frowned. “I have?”

Baugh nodded. “Most minions gained their powers from one of those spirits. You instead got a fragment of one of the stronger spirits.”

“Huh…” Her frown deepened. “But don’t they go dormant after a while? They won’t even know there’s anything going on, right?”

Rather, unless both Cody and Max had dormant spirits, they would have been in deep shit a long time ago.

“Yes. But the dormant ones can easily be woken up by those who aren’t dormant… or those who don’t even have a host.”

So it would only take one to find out for a massive chain reaction.

“After all, that fragment of Nomed in you went dormant all the time, didn’t it? And then all it took was a slight brush of mana from the original Nomed to wake it up again.”

“Oh… So that’s how it happened. I was wondering…” Jessica grimaced. “So in other words… If the word gets out, half the minion army will turn on us?”

“Pretty much.”

Jessica crossed her arms as she glared at the research notes, her mind churning, trying to figure out some kind of loophole in the whole mess.

And she found one.

“Alright, then I’ll play the role of a traitor.”

“Say what…?”

“I’ll be our contact with the magical girls. I’ll pretend to be a double agent, bringing information about the demon army to them – which is exactly what I’ll be doing, actually – and if it ever gets out, you just go ahead and call me a traitor and throw me to the wolves.” She shrugged as if she hadn’t just suggested putting herself in a horrible position.

Naturally, everyone else in the room stared at her like she was mad.

“You’re gonna be playing a secret agent? Oh, that’s so cool!” Hecate cheered.

“You… Are you serious? Do you even realize what you’re suggesting?” Sally said.

“Of course I do. Heck, it’s even what I’ve been doing before the trials.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, I joined the demon army to destroy it from the inside to help the magical girls.” Jessica huffed. “But then I found out that you’re actually not evil and are, in fact, trying to prevent the end of the world and all that.” She waved her hand in the air, carelessly leaning on her chair as she looked around the room in disinterest. “And you know, I actually kinda like the world not ending, so I decided to help you instead.”

Another moment of stunned silence.

Then Hecate began giggling.

“That’s hilarious! You were going to betray us? I had no idea!”

Jessica smirked at the very Hecate-esque reaction and hovered a fist in her direction. Hecate bumped it with hers. “Well, I am a professional actress. Tricking all of you is just par for the course.”

Being in the drama club definitely counted as being a professional.

“You… That thing with Forneus… You got him fired on purpose, didn’t you?!” Sally growled and pinned Jessica with a furious glare.

Jessica gave her a glowing grin in return. “Yup! Everything according to plan.”

Baugh took a deep breath and released it in a half-groan half-sigh. “I can’t believe that you just admitted to planning on betraying us and I’m actually happy about it.”

“You’re happy about it?!” Sally screamed in pure indignation. “Why the hell are you happy?!”

“Because,” Baugh began as he looked straight at Sally, “since none of us even suspected it, we know she would be perfect for this job of a fake double agent.”

Jessica’s grin got even wider. “Does that mean you’ll let me do it, then?”

Baugh looked at her for a moment, probably thinking it over and considering the pros and cons, before finally giving a nod.

“Great!” Jessica beamed at him, ignoring the demonic scowl on Sally’s face.

Pretending to be evil had been fun for a little bit, the lack of flirting with Erika in her life had already been severely lacking as of late. Continuing this charade would mean an even longer drought.

Not worth it.