Magia Record Story Winter Recollection ~From us who are still transparent~
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Part 1: An old story
Mifuyu suddenly transforms into the demon king of fire that she played when she was young. In order to return to her original form, she must fulfills people's wishes.
Part 2: A phantom story
Sequel of the last event, Yachiyo suddenly transforms into the ice Queen that she played when she was young.
Chapter 1
Summary by bigscarythings
Continuing from Part 1 of Winter Recollection, we open with Mitama setting up the hsop for her Christmas party when Momoko walks in and asks how things are going. Mitama says they're waiting for Konomi to bring the wreath over, and we get a little montage of all the girls present - Kushu is snoozing, while Seira and Rui are working on editing their Mifuyu movie, and show Momoko a clip. Momoko is shocked to see Mifuyu performed in the movie, and recalls overhearing stories about Mifuyu being turned into a demon king or a kid or something - she doesn't really get what it was all about, just that it happened. Mitama says hoo boy, there's a *lot* to explain, and crashes Momoko through a summary of the first event.
All that's been settled, though, and Mifuyu is back to normal again! ...For just a moment, anyway - the girls overhear Tsuruno barreling into the Coordinator's shop, and they know life is about to get very exciting again. Momoko has to step out again, and Mitama tries to reassure her that everything will be fine over here, but Momoko knows how these things go by now, so she insists - if Mitama needs anything, contact Momoko ASAP!
The Mikazuki girls, looking glum, arrive with Mifuyu - who's in full Demon King regalia. Mifuyu explains to Rui that no, she's not stuck in little kid mode again - she's free to detransform this time! But still, they'd like to iron this out sooner rather than later, and are trying different avenues for solutions - Iroha and Ui are consulting with Touka and Nemu (Touka has some choice words for Mifuyu (possibly to do with skipping her studies), it seems), while the rest of Mikazuki is taking the matter up with Mitama.
Mitama chews on things for a bit, confirming that this incident was caused by opening the time capsule and reading the script. Yachiyo's brought the time capsule for that purpose, but is understandably wary about opening it up again in case something happens. But there's nothing they can really do unless they crack open the box again - Felicia pops it right open, saying hey, things can't get any worse than they are right now! Yachiyo fusses, but Felicia opens the script, showing that it's all back to normal again, where in the Mifuyu event, it was blank. Since disaster hasn't struck (yet), the girls figure they ought to read it and see if it offers any hints as to what's going on - only for the box to glow again, engulfing the room in white light once more...
...And indeed, when it fades, Yachiyo is now in her Ice Queen form, just like her costume from when she was a kid! And Mifuyu's been forcibly transformed into her Demon King self as well. And, like Mifuyu, it quickly becomes evident that Yachiyo has her kid mindset again as well. Even after Yachiyo detransforms, she's still a kid at heart...
Given all the fuss over Yachiyo, it takes a moment for the other girls to notice Mifuyu's predicament as well - an anguished look tearing across her face, Mifuyu apologizes to everyone, and her illusion magic abruptly activates, casting everyone present into a recreation of the world of the Demon King and Ice Queen fairy tale! Yachiyo and Mifuyu are the queen and king, while all the other girls are now in their winter or Christmas outfits. Yachiyo marvels over how the fairy tale world is real now, while poor Tsuruno can only freak out over what on earth is going on here.
The girls regroup, with Mifuyu herself nowhere to be found. All the while, Mitama is oddly silent, but at Felicia's prompting, she abruptly starts narrating, as if in a trance, the tale of the Ice Queen and Demon King. It all goes normal at first - everyone wanted to work together to help the Demon King's wish come true, but couldn't figure out what she wanted until they dug up the memories of her past, which revealed she had wanted to get along with everyone. So all they had to do was wait for the white Christmas to come...but this is where things diverge.
This time, Mitama says that in remembering her past, the Demon King unlocked memories that had been sealed by the Ice Queen - that previous Demon King had destroyed the kingdom, and the current king is fated to do so again. In light of this, the Demon King withdrew from society and disappeared. In order to save her, the Ice Queen traveled to the Wandering Forest, seeking out the "fragments of anguish" in order to understand the King's pain - only to find that many trials would await her...
The atmosphere suddenly takes on a more foreboding weight. Still, Yachiyo reasons that to cure Mifuyu, they had to follow the story of the old script; so to get Yachiyo fixed up, they likely need to do the same thing here. The girls contemplate the situation further, concluding that the world they're in must be born from Mifuyu's magic (Rui is privately impressed by how quickly they're all rolling with getting isekaied!)
Soon enough, Mitama snaps out of her trance - she intuits she must be playing the role of the "elder" character in this story (hence the Santa beard!). So everyone present must be playing a particular role in this tale, such as the soldier, merchant, and reindeer (Tsuruno's like "Hey, why do I have to be the reindeer?!"). Speaking of which, what's with this story, anyway? Yachiyo ponders on it, and thinks - perhaps this was a continuation of the original play?
At this, Temari and Mikura enter the scene. Temari speaks up, saying she shares Yachiyo's suspicion as well, explaining the OG script the club had received been given wasn't structurally sound. For example, while there was a King and Queen established, only the King had any major role in the story. More importantly, Temari felt the story as it stood had no theme - the ending wasn't much of a conclusion. Temari had a feeling that perhaps the original story had a different ending, and while Yachiyo can't recall how the whole story went went, she's more certain now that they had written a sequel. With that, Temari senses some odd magic...
Seira cuts in, asking when Mikura and Temari showed it? As it turns out, they'd just now entered the Coordinator's shop and got sucked into this world as well - which is a big cause for concern, since it sounds like anyone who tries entering Mitama's shop in the real world will get trapped in this one.
Here, we get some lore stuff about how Mifuyu's magic work. To cut to the quick, while Tsuruno explains they'd dubbed Mifuyu's magic "Hallucination," the things in the dream worlds she conjures do impact the real world - basically, "you die in the dream, you die in real life." And that introduces yet another problem besides - if this world is running on Mifuyu's magic, what happens if Mifuyu runs out? Sure, she won't witch out, but her doppeling out could be dangerous for everyone involved. So they gotta get going and solve this story!
To that end, after Mitama helps recap the second half of the story, Yachiyo strives to remember more specific details on how this story played out, and quickly unveils another sticking point, the thing Temari had sensed earlier: the more of the story that Yachiyo remembers, the more magic activates to rewrite her surroundings to recreate the narrative. Sana, for example, enters a trance and takes on the role of the Merchant, while Tsuruno is locked into the Reindeer. The thing is, though...Yachiyo knew this would happen. But she has to do this in order to make the story happen, so she can understand Mifuyu, save her, and earn their happy ending. She apologizes to them all, and asks them to play their part - and so, they're off to save the King!
Our dramatis personae:
Yachiyo = Ice Queen Felicia = Soldier Tsuruno = Reindeer Sana = Merchant Mitama = Elder Konomi = Demon King's attendant History Club Quartet = Fragment Guardians Kushu = Ice Queen's retainer
The characters, all locked into the roles, start acting out the story - the citizens are all shocked upon learning the truth of the Demon King and the kingdom's past. The soldier is raring to fight the king, but the Ice Queen helps cool her head - yes, the Demon King is fated to destroy the land, but the King is not evil. She believes the King can defy her fate. After all, she asks the people, how has the Demon King treated them all? They recall all the ways the Demon King has helped them survive the winter, giving them food and lighting their hearths. The soldier soon stands down, saying yes, she does want to save the King, too. Their love for the king hasn't changed a bit - so they all agree to go out and find her!
To do that, the queen and her friends embark into the dark, snowy Wandering Forest. The elder warns, however, that people often lose themselves in the forest - in the way people can get lost in thought, they can find themselves traveling in circles in that forest. But if they can find the Fragments of Anguish, understand people's woes and grief, and help others resolve their emotional turmoil, the path out of the forest will reveal itself.
As they start their hunt for the Fragments, they shortly encounter an attendant of the Demon King - a girl who resents the Queen and wishes to save the King herself. While the Queen wants them to work together, the servant resents the Queen for keeping the King's past a secret and causing this trouble. While the servant understand the queen was well-intended, she's unimpressed with the Queen's logic - if she really did believe the king could overcome her fate, why not equip her with the truth?
In the end, they decide that if the Queen can collect the Fragments of Anguish first, then the servant will concede and travel with the Queen from now on. To make things fair, the Queen offers to search for the Fragments alone, but the servant seems confident that she can find it even if she's outnumbered. She gets going while the Queen and her friends regroup, talking about why the servant values the King so much, then onto how to find a Fragment. At this, the queen senses the shard, and the party gets a move on!
Each Fragment (taking on the form of the time capsule) is protected by a guardian, and soon enough, the Queen and her crew encounter the first (Seira). They must earn the Fragment through various trials, and this first one is a test of wits: the Queen must ensure the guardian cannot move without hurting her, and must escape the guardian's own trap when the latter does the same. The Queen goes first and makes short order of the trial by using her ice powers to freeze the guardian's shoes to the ground and numbing her limbs. But the guardian steps things up with the next trial - she balances a glass of water on the back of the queen's hand; the queen realizes that if she moves, she'll spill the glass. And the queen outwits the guardian's trap by...simply freezing the water. With that, no spill, and the guardian admits defeat!
Still, the guardian asks how the queen would have foiled her trap without ice powers. The queen wracks her brain, but the guardian hints that the solution is quite simple: the queen was so caught up in the idea of not spilling the glass that she forgot the rule was simply, "prevent the other from moving without hurting her." It didn't matter whether she spilled the glass or not! The soldier grumbles that it's cheating. The guardian doesn't deny that, but says humans really ought to rely on their wits more.
In any case, the guardian hands over the first Fragment, and a memory rushes into the Queen's mind - in a sick awesome flaming volcano setting, the demon anguishes over her evil bloodline, and despairs over being fated to destroy the kingdom once more... In the memory, the Queen insists the king isn't anything like her ancestors - when they're together, she's not an evil demon king, but simply the queen's best friend.
The Queen recognizes this event as a memory from before the King was sealed. She takes the servant's words to heart - she had cheated by sealing away the king's memories without allowing for the king to try overcoming her fate.
The next trial (which the Seira guardian accompanies them to) involves playing a card game, Revolution (I think the Mitch Gunzler game), against two guardians (Mikura and Temari). If the Queen wins the game, she wins the Fragment as well. I couldn't quite follow the rules here, but it sounds like in the game, if a Revolution is attained, then the lowest-scoring cards become the highest and vice versa; despite starting with a bad hand, the Queen executes such and wins the game. The guardians enjoyed the game and congratulate the queen, asking if she'd been gunning for a Revolution all along. The Queen admits no - she just refused to give up and kept looking for opportunities to turn the game around. The guardians sagely agree - while one cannot change her starting point, her decisions can change the future.
With that, the queen receives her next Fragment, which combines with the first to fill out more of the time capsule. Just as well, another memories unfolds, continuing from the last. Still in the sick flaming death volcano, the King is freaking out, insisting she can't escape her past, and has no choice but to give up, and goes berserk. When the memory ends, the Queen recalls what happened next - she put a stop to the King's demonic rampage, sealed the King's memory, and...gave up on being able to avert the King's fate otherwise. The Queen gets melancholy, but the Guardians encourage her, assuring her that she has the power to change the future.
There's just one last Fragment to go! This time, the guardian (Rui) lays down a trial to catch a certain adorable white critter. She gloats about how her familiar is a timid scaredy-cat who will never allow itself to be caught...meanwhile, Mokyu happily scampers up to the Queen and jumps right into her arms, ending the trial as soon as it began. The guardian is floored, but whips up another trial by summoning a wicked monster the queen must defeat! The soldier smirks, thinking he's weak because he's small, but he suddenly vanishes out of sight, reappearing to attack the Queen!
But that's swiftly dealt with when the Queen's retainer finally wakes up to serve the queen - together, they overcome the wicked beast! After some more banter, the gang can now receive the final Fragment...except the King's attendant had already acquired it first. The attendant and the queen have a heart-to-heart and manage to make up, both understanding that the other really did have the King's best interests at heart, and they agree to combine their Fragments to complete the memories, and the time capsule glows in light again - and Yachiyo, fully self-aware, realizes their true nature.
All sorts of reali life memories flood in, each mapping onto a memory of the Demon King - for example, where the King was crushed by the weight of her legacy, it correlates to Mifuyu being crushed under the pressure of the Azusa family. As the King found refuge in her friendship with the Queen, where they weren't demon king and ice queen but two best friends - so did Mifuyu and Yachiyo: "When you're with me, you're not the heir of the Azusa family - you're just Mifuyu." In a montage, the whole of Mifuyu's life marches before Yachiyo, from when they first became magical girls, to meeting and losing Kanae and then Mel, to Mifuyu's time in the Magius - everything, everything is unveiled to Yachiyo.
And for the final memory...Yachiyo and Mifuyu, seemingly after Arc 1, speak to each other at a park in the dead of the night. Mifuyu talks about how she really shouldn't have anything to complain about - she and her fiance meet up now and then, and the relationship is solid. Her wishes for the future are on track to come true, but...even so, Mifuyu feels frozen in place. Every time she wants to move forward...every time she tries to change herself...her mom comes screaming back into her head and she locks up. She cannot break the yoke of being the Azusa family heiress. Yachiyo tried imploring her, saying she's moved out now, she's independent, she's not a kid anymore - but it's changed nothing for Mifuyu; she still calls herself a coward - that her desires will remain impossible to achieve, forever out of reach.
Back in the present (well, in the storybook world), Yachiyo realizes Mifuyu must be isolating herself in this dream world, crying and alone. And there's more, too - rummaging through the recompleted time capsule, Yachiyo digs up some souvenirs within, and remembers what became of their Chrismas play. Cueing that cute CG of Yachiyo and Mifuyu making sketches for the play, Yachiyo remembers how they'd wanted to do the two halves of the Demon King and Ice Queen story, with the ambition to have the Ice Queen's half end on an ambiguous note, a "Merry Unmerry Christmas" - an ending that's happy or sad depending on the eye of the beholder.
But in the end, just before the Christmas party where the play would make its debut, Yachiyo walked in on Yachigrandma comforting the sobbing Mifuyu. Grandma explains that Mifuyu was filling out her diary/profile book, on a section of what she wanted to be when she grew up - she had written down how she wanted to be a henshin heroine/superhero, but got wrung out by her mom and was forced to erase it. Mifuyu is breaking down completely, crying about how she knows it's all fantasy, but she just wants to dream anyway - she knows she can't escape, but she wants to forget htat for a little while. She knows her future is written in stone, that she can't escape her awful family, that she has no hope for the future to come - her life is going to be just like the Demon King's.
And so there's no doubt about it - they *have* to nix the tragic ending and end on a high note. They have to give Mifuyu hope. And that's why their play ended at the awkward point where it did.
Unfortunately, Yachiyo realizes...they're all trapped in the Merry Unmerry Christmas half of the play. In the time capsule, Yachiyo digs up the notes on the play and reads to the end of the synopsis - the queen and her friends pass through the forest and arrive at the king's castle, only to find it empty. The whole party calls out the King, eventually convincing the King that the people really do love her.
But fate could not be overturned: the King loses control, and the mountain threatens to explode, while monsters go berserk and ravage the kingdom. The Queen, however, knows this King doesn't want this, and tries to stop the King - but alas, she melts within the King's burning flames, and when the ashes die down, neither the King nor Queen are to be found. While they were both opposites, in the end, they both wanted to be happy together - and perhaps because of that, even though they are absent, peace and a white Christmas finally settle over the land. So every year, the people pray - for this land the king and queen left behind find happiness, and for a beautiful white Christmas.
That's all well and good, but...Yachiyo doesn't want to know what will happen if that ending plays out for real. Yachiyo flashes back to what Rui had concluded about dying in the dream = dying in the real world... The problem now is that Yachiyo is the only one who's self-aware of her role in the story. And now she has to figure out how to get them all out of here herself.
And with that...to be continued!