Prologue - A Most Wicked Quickening
>Mermaid Guildy sulkily laments upon Phoenix Guildy's death in her lab. She wasn't counting on the Ultimaguil Leader to get taken down but she's still down about it. She did manage to finally get footage of the leader's true identity but she doesn't have many moves left. She also considers Phoenix's death to be a personal loss since they did get along somewhat.
>She moves onto the Tail Brace Alter she stole from Twirl in the battle against Medusa Guildy and considers how it works. She surmises she'd need to slot in an elemera orb and it's revealed that she's the reason that the God A Sword guildies don't drop orbs after dying - she's been snatching them before the gang ever notices. She ponders some more about which orbs she'd use and she decides she really probably has use up her own life as a crack along her head pulsates.
Chapter 1 - Twintails of Reunion
>Twirl's been up at night modifying the base and sleepwalks into Souji's room wrapped in a blanket. Aika comes in but instead of a full blown fight as usual, she just wraps her up in the blanket tight and stuffs her into Erina's doghouse in Souji's room. Souji wakes up to Erina's surprised scream early in the morning when she sees her spot has been occuppied.
>Later at school, Aika and Souji has to wait outside the clubroom since Twirl is busy fixing it up too complete with weird sounds periodically coming out. The two talk about how things are and Aika realizes she can take the chance to make good on her goal to confess to Souji then and there. She gets up and starts talking about them and right when she's getting the words out a very purposefully timed bit of noise stops her and Twirl steps out and declares the mini renovations done. Twirl makes of Aika for looking like she's set up a generic mob character confession and naturally this results in retribution.
>The rest soon come along and they notice Twirl's not looking too good but she just passes it off as a result of Aika's violence moments ago. She explains that though things appear the same she's upped the defenses and gadgetry between there and the base but they ask her what brought about the renovation even though they've never been attacked at either places. She just says Mermaid Guildy's been proving to be a very dangerous foe. Isuna mentions that Mermaid wasn't the way she is when they first met. She was much more calm and unremarkable but something changed by the time they had a second meet up.
>Swan guildy is going over the past battle footage and found that there are stramge breaks in footage and suspects correctly that Mermaid Guildy tampered with them
>He returns to the hall where the rest of guildies are marvelling at Mermaid's newest invention - an energy sword copy of Red's sword.
>Mermaid and Swan get into a subtext laden outwardly polite exchange and the tension gets mistaken for love by the other guildies. Mermaids plays along and teases him by saying they're like totally in love to Swan's objections and denial. Sparrow is touched by how much he's grown, the others cheer them on and ask when's the marriage and if they got baby plans. Mermaid says that having a baby would be wonderful and says they'd have to run an experiment to get one down by artificial means. Swan tolerates the hijinx but his mind is stuck on how she said being able to make babies is wonderful.
>With the gang, Isuna has been trying to reach Yuno but hasn't been any responses back so she's worried so Souji mentions that they met up recently and tells them she's going to away to do some special training. They buy it but he never mentions that they met in a dream and that Yuno actually told him that she's taking a bit of rest and not training.
>TWirl introduces her newest addition, Toarun(activated by saying "Oppai Toarun"). A holographic ai interface that pops up on the clubroom table in the form of a chibi styled Twirl. It's capable of responding to pretty much any request and can hack even the CIA but Mikoto causes it to bug out massively when she asks it to predict her wedding date. Twirl is shocked at the breakdown and Mikoto is bummed out bu Souji consoles her by saying that at least it didn't outright say there was no date.
>Aika notices that Twirl's made all these upgrades to their equipment but didn't prepare her usual fanfare banners and the like for it and points out that her recent Anti Aika Systems haven't stood up very well lately. Twirl complains that it makes no sense to keep up the cycle of creation and destruction to which Aika says she'd been looking forward to them as challenges for her to overcome
>Twirl admits to being in a slump and that these upgrades were the best she can come up with at the moment. She tells them to request whatever they like from her so she can get some inspiration. Erina asks for her own Anti Erina System(AES).
>Teh elemarian alert goes off and Souji's surprised to hear it's been changed back to the clip of him saying "Twoearle's boobs!" to which he internally whines how he was just taken aback in the previous volume at Twirl suddenly changing it and didn't actually for it to be changed back
>The elemarian alert leads them to a beach resort where they encounter Frog Guildy of the Navel affinity. Hijinx and lewding of Tail Red ensues until Frog pulls out the copy red sword from inside his mouth. Twirl is shocked at the sight and Frog asks for a duel with Red but Blue's already got him trapped in an aura pillar mid speech and kills him before anything can happen. The weapon is left on the ground but when Red reaches out for it, it starts sparking and self destructs
>That night, Souji can't sleep since he's thinking about the days events. He senses that someone's in the dark with him in the room and asks if it's one of the girls but it turns out to be Solar. Mystified by what she's doing there she says she's come to have a talk with. He asks what she is. She says she's a twintail to which he can only say "I understand". She walks around admiring his room since she never gets to see so much detail in their previous contacts. Souji says it's just a normal room but it doesn't stop her from being fascinated by it. She spots some twintail eroge on his shelves and Solar passes him dissapointed look but says she understands boys will be boys. He defends himself saying that Isuna left them there for him but she doesn't buy it and pulls one out involving twintail bondage and inspects it. She tells him that she's actually very much pushing it by meeting like this with him but says it's necessary since she needed to be able to be able to talk at length with him. She also mentions that the more capable he is of using the ultimate twintails, the weaker the connection between the two of them becomes. He asks what is it she came to talk about and she tells him she's come to ask him to please stop fighting,
Chapter 2 - Twintails of Secrecy
>Souji asks why she would ask that now when she acknowledged him before and she says that she felt the Ultimaguil Leader used their powers to have a very fulfilling fight recently and she's afraid that the Twintails will be next very soon. She's evasive about how and why she knows this but the somberness she's expressing is dampered by how she's still holding the eroge in her hand which Souji has been internally pleading for her to put down this whole time. Solar disappears and he goes to pick up the eroge box she put down to put it back and notes how he can feel her warmth still on the box. He wonders why she referred to leader with such familiarity but then Aika pops up from his window since she sensed a girl. She grows suspicious at the lack of Twirl or Isuna and starts acting like a bloodhound. Souji stiffenly denies the presence of a girl having just been here and Aika spots the out of place eroge. She misunderstands what happened in here and now thinks she'll sense Souji's private time as if a girl was there with him. She excuses herself and makes sure to let Souji know that he can carry on and that she'll be plugging her ears for the rest of the night out of consideration for him.
>Back with the guildies, Frog left a message for them.
>To everyone, by the time you Receive this navel of Tail Red's I will no longer be here in this world. However, fear not and please continue with it after me. This much cuteness for just a small share of courage..."
>The guildies celebrate his valiant efforts and demonize Blue as usual for her dirty tactics. Swan especially sympathizes with Frog since he's been in the same situation with Blue before. She indulge in the navel pics Frog sent their way but freak out when they see Blue's and deletes it. Mermaid comes along with a newly completed set of the copy twintail weapons and propses a new strategy that involves them masquerading and acting like the twintails to fight against them and steal elemera. Mermaid expects Swan to start picking a fight with her but he doesn't object to it since the plan does have some merit. He still doesn't trust them completely though knowing it's likely part of Mermaid's grander schemes. The guildies then fight for who gets which weapon. No one wants Blue's and someone even breaks down saying he can't bear to kill his heart and become a killing machine. Appollo Guildy comes in skipping all cheerily like their resident mascot character and seeing the trouble simply chooses someone to take Blue's spear. Her choice of course would be Gorilla guildy.
>Back at the clubroom Twirl is spacing out when Aika asks for a hypnotizing device because of the eroge she found in Souji's room the night before. When she snaps out of it she refuses in fear of Aika using it on her. Aika says she's only wants it because she thinks Souji's into it. Souji lets the misunderstanding continue since he thinks it might help him meet Solar. Twirl brings out Anti Aika System 15(Aika Sousasuuru, a metronome, there's a pun there I can't quite figure out how to translate) which is exactly what Aika was asking for but naturally she tries to use it against her only for the cycle of violence, destruction and retribution to continue on.
>Souji's birthday is coming in 2 weeks on Feb 22. THey ask what he wants and he doesn't really want anything but does say stuff like a twintail hug pillow might be nice. Aika objects and not so subtly offers up herself in its place but Souji says it's good to try out different flavors of them.
>Twirl and Isuna's world don't do bdays and count the age from the start of the year. After some talk they decide to make their birthdays the same as Souji's. This is where the girls decide to have dome private girl talk and have Souji and Mikoto go on ahead home much to the latter chagrin at their insistence on making a young girls only talk. The pair head back home with a troupe of Erina's other maids tagging along. THey decide to take advantage of Erina's absence to mob him and barely stop just short of molesting him while evaluating how good he is as future husband material of their mistress. There's an implication there that the maids are just as available to the master for anything. His passing by schoolmates are right to feel very envious of him. Mikoto mentions she's never done the walking home from school with friends thing so the rest of them let the pair go on ahead so she can experience something of her lost youth.
>Meanwhile with the girls, they're having their talks about their milestones they talked about in the previous volumes. None have achieved their goals yet but Erina and Isuna are pretty satisfied with their progress and Aika was interrupted while she was fulfilling hers. Twirl gets a bit dejected from it but they cheer her up. That's when the Toarun pops to alert them of an elemarian attack.
>Souji warps from home and they find Gorilla pretending to be Blue being a nuisance to people. The rest unanimously leave it to Blue since it's a gorilla much to her annoyance. Gorilla starts bothering a kid who's been playing a twintail gacha game and threatens to use up his saved up rolls in the heat of the moment but Yellow gets pissed at him goes into total Sadist mode and demands he sit still for a scolding. The kid thanks her but states he still doesn't to roll any Yellows on his account. To everyone's surprise it's actually the low quality effort at mimicking Blue that has her furious. She says to put more heart into acting if he's going to be taking up the evil rangers plot and he objects to the thought of assaulting people with violence and nearly killing them.
>Gorilla bluffs for a duel with Blue but she gladly accepts it to his surprise. She even says she's up for fisticuffs since he's a gorilla. Gorilla panics and pulls out the copy lance so they get into a lance fight but she naturally wins. Before killing him she asks what his affinity and he says it's Boorish i.e. unrefined manners. She laments that they probably could have had a better fight if he stuck to that and he agrees and respects her for it. The copy lance naturally self destructs after.
>Mermaid is back at her lab when she gets a visitor. Another God A Sword elemarian by the name of Hades guildy. He comments upon her current pervert power of 60000 and how it's dropped from her old days.
Chapter 3 - A New Sun
>Twirl and Souji are watching the news on the couch. They get into how advanced technology can get since the news talked about the robot Tail Blue theory and this eventually leads to Twirl insisting Souji inspects her body to make sure she's not a robot herself. Aika immediately comes barging in wet and draped in a towel to stop her. She complains that Twirl's been spending way too much time up in the house and Twirl surprisingly admits to that and says there's no point in going to her room since she can't sleep and the slump is keeping her from getting things done in the lab. She also says it's lonely to have to spend time down there so Aika drops the murderous intentions and tells her she'll sleep together with her in her room that night. Miharu suggests a bath to ease Twirl's anxiety and Aika takes her up on it and drags Twirl with her to the bathroom. Twirl says she'd really much rather have one with Souji and he actually says that's not a bad idea since he doesn't want her to be thinking depressing thoughts alone. He doesn't actually join them though.
>Time for an elemarian attack. This time it's a God A Sword member by the name of Ifrit Guildy whose affinity is the Suntan Skin. God A Sword is still acting independently from the remnants so no copy weapon. He gets into an argument with Blue about skincare when he pushes Red to get some colour on her young nubile skin. He manages to persuade Red into the idea that having tanned twintails is a good thing too. That said he gets disappointed when he finds out neither Red nor Blue were the type of kids to get tanned while growing up even though they were active kids. The ultiroids then bring round a tanning bed and Ifrit tells red to strip down naked and get in right there. Cue the girls going straight to power ups and beginning a literal stomping party on him. He breaks out of the thrashing and Red tries to summon the twintail brace but it doesn't pop up. Blue is under the impression it only shows up when it's needed but really it's due to Solar.
>Fight goes on until Ifrit accepts he can't win so he uses the power-up orb God's Breath to go berserk. He starts blasting balls of fire around and gives them a tough time until Apollo Guildy shows up to save Black in the nick of time. She chides Ifrit for using the infernal item and says the next one can't be resorting to things like this since it'd be the end for elemarians if they start going around causing actual casualties. She playfully demonstrates an immunity to Ifrit's fires and uses her ridiculously powerful control over fire to burn him up from the inside. Before he can go up in massive blaze of glory, she kicks him way up into a nearby building to contain the explosion. Twirl later confirms that this was a deliberate move since the building was scheduled for demolition anyway.
>She then cheerily brings up how Red really reminds her of their leader and suggests they play around a bit themselves. Hades Guildy shows up though and stops her and she tells him she wasn't actually going to be serious about it.
>Hades makes his introductions and reveals an ability bestowed upon him by their leader - the perversion power level scouter. He measures up Yellow to be at 95000 which is not insignificant. Black registers at 94000 and Mega Ne is at 1000 which is much lower than a typical human. He's impressed with Blue whose level is at 100000 which she still denies as she couldn't possibly be more perverted than Black and Yellow. Hades makes sure to point out that the difference is actually quite significant. Red finally gets a clue into how much of a deviant this childhood friend really is. Hades then checks Red out and is so astonished to see it's 2000000 that he says it twice over as it's an unthinkable number for someone that young which probably is meant to hint that those numbers are Solar's. He even makes it clear that pervert levels have nothing to do with battle power. Blue is quite pleased by the revelation and Red insists it has to be based on how much twintail love one has since they are elemarians after all. Hades flatly answers that's not the case and that all it does is measure one's perversion. He does mention that though he as an idea of how it works the only one who truly knows is their leader. Blue is not happy that he's making her out to be the massive so she gives him powered groin kick to which Red can't help but cover her nether regions which she internally denies actually touching. Apollo cheerily points out that Red's reacting like she's a got peXXs to which Red says it's simply that it just looked that painful. That's when Red realizes Apollo was being quiet during Hades' hijinx and must have been watching very closely. After some more peXXs talk, Apollo says that's all the fun for the day and for them to get much stronger for when they'll actually do battle. The gang later goes over what happened and they conclude that Apollo is not the child appears to be. Also, even if Apollo's appearance does very much hit right within strike zone as a tiara wearing short haired loli, she absolutely draws the line at sexualizing elemarians because of her hate for them. Aika's also quite giddy about Souji's perversion levels since for her it means there's definitely something she can work with.
>Mermaid exasperatedly arrives at the Leader's domain, which is now fixed like new, complaining that she's not some secretary. She notices though that there's a white gravestone now at the foot of the leader's throne monument thing. The leader says it's to commemorate the death of a worthy foe and fight. Floating above the stone is a coffee mill and drip slowly pouring drops of coffee onto the stone. The leader remarks it seemed more appropriate than wine as the undying bird liked coffee so she made sure to put in the effort to manually and telekineticly drip it herself. Mermaid thought it was a nice gesture but she's also bit ticked off at the name written on the tomstone - Tail Phoenix. It bugs her that there was something about her frenemy that leader knew but she doesn't. The leader gets into the usual spiel about it and she can't help but give smartass retorts at every step until the leader brings up she's showing an unusual reaction for someone who shouldn't have been able to witness the fight. Cold sweat breaks over Mermaid as she realizes the leader baited her into basically admitting she knows what the leader really looks like now.
>Leader tells her not to be so scared and says she was actually praising Mermaid for it considering many have tried to do things along those lines before but all ended in failure. She turns that minute relief on its head as she continues on to say that though she did not mind the successful spying, she does mind that someone she didn't deem a worthy warrior saw her face unpermitted. Leader muses the time for their little chats is up but she does invite Mermaid to stick around as another fixture. Mermaid tries to refuse but stops as she feels a deadly cold wind brush her cheek and hear the voice change to that of a young girl coming from right behind her stating that Mermaid really hasn't got much time left to live. Mermaid is scared stiff, lets out a virgin gasp of terror and dares not turn around even out of curiosity as she notices the veil the leader usually sits behind now exposes an empty throne to her view.
>The leader returns back behind the veil and Mermaid excuses herself obviously shaken by what just happened. As she leaves, the leader remarks that since she doesn't need to be so conservative with her treachery anymore she hopes that Mermaid will use the opportunity to show what exactly the present leader of God A Sword can do when cornered.
Chapter 4 - Twintail History
>Hades comes again a few days near the waters and a bridge, possibly that one tokusatsu bridge, but he's only come to have a talk with them the under the pretext of improving the twintail mimic strategy by observing them for details properly. Red is suspicious but humor him as he shows off his elemera ability - Personify. After some fanciful long winded explanations they get the gist of it is a seemingly harmless ability to project a delusion in the form of anthropomorphic object i.e. he a holographic waifu out of an apple. It takes an entire page filled with a background information for said new apple waifu but after a little while the gang actually manages to see the apple waifu right in front of their eyes as a very lifelike illusion as described by Hades. During the exchange they learn that Personify is only one of his affinities and that he was formerly known as Death Guildy - one of Black's former mentor. Black only realized after sitting through that page long description of the waifu and the rest learn that she modeled her horns in her Dark Grasper outfit after his and that he was the one that taught her the illusion techniques she uses.
>A bunch of little girls appear over the bridge so Hades takes the chance to make his leave. One of the little girls asks Red if it's true that her birthday was coming up and Red inadvertantly confirms that it's true by asking how she found out. Naturally this leads to worlwide shenanigans later.
>Later that Souji has one of those naked in a hazy light dream and meets up Solar once more. She's come to share her story and history of twintails with him. She still doesn't like the idea of letting him fight but she at least wants him to know how this all came to be going forward. She goes on to explain that she is indeed the goddess depicted at the Shindou's family shrine and that she created the universe in two days. On the first day she created lands and seas and the like. On the second day she tied her hair into twintails. That's it for this story's creation myth. As the sole goddesss that created the world, she was feeling lonely so she decided to tie her hair into twintails which had an unexpected effect on the entire universe. The universe started to have twintails gets sewn into the very fabric of reality, apparently making twintails the aether of the universe, and then world just suddenly split in two over and over and over again which turned the one original world into the many parallel worlds that exist now. (I really have to say as silly as this sounds it's hardly the weirdest creation myth I've encountered)
>After that the worlds just kept on splitting and evolving leading to the birth of the elemarians who fed that twintail energy. Solar hadn't intended for any of it to happen and her tying her hair into twintails was only supposed to be just the act of a single girl trying to cope with her loneliness and she's sorry for the trouble it's caused. Souji naturally doesn't blame her for it and appreciates her for bringing twintails into existence. He then asks if Tail Red is her child self but she says that while he did transform into her back in vol 4, she has only ever looked like the same as she does now the same way that elemarians are born complete in their base forms. She says that Tail Red is the Souji's ideal form for a person wearing twintails and that the reason he ended cathcing her eye was because he's an interesting twintail. She thanks him and bids him goodbye as he wakes up from the dream and hopes that they'll meet again before their connection is gone completely.
>Then they meet again right when he wakes up, naked and in bed with him. She's materialized into the real world for some unknown reason and that the reason they're naked instead of in clothes is because Solar turns out to have chuuni tendencies and deliberately stage their dream meeting to happen in a misty light and in the nude.
>Aika bursts in through the door thinking it's one of the others as usual but she immediately freezes up when she sees the scene. Deciding to hear him out, Aika gives Souji 5 seconds to explain himself before she starts to destroy the world. Solar quickly adlibs that she's Souji's twintails given form thanks to Hades' Personify elemera. Aika buys it and is relieved to see that the busty naked girl in bed with her man was actually Solar. The world lives for another day as Aika calms down and opens up the closet to get something for her to wear instead of just draping Souji's blanket around herself. Twirl soon pops up and is very, very happy to see the naked pair in front her. Isuna does too from her closet portal startled by Solar's presence. Twirl thanks her stars for granting her just what she needed to get over her slump and dives in to partake in a double treat but Aika casually roundhouse kicks her into the wall. Apparently Solar doesn't get to see everything Souji sees so she's freaked out by Aika's superhuman feat of violence. When Erina walks in, Solar starts sulking calling him an unfaithful cheater and asks why is it that Souji's room keeps attracting so many girls to it . Souji himself has been asking that question for months now.
>Back with Mermaid and Hades, the two of them are discussing their plans and she thanks him for creating the subjects she needed to proceed. Swan was passing by and overhears them just in time to learn that Mermaid is going to die soon. She teases him by saying to Hades they shouldn't be meeting up secret like this lest her darling catches them in the at which Swan steps out and shoots back the she is nothing to him. Hades introduces himself and reads his perversion level. Swan has 83000 to his name and Hades commends him for that and passes him a usb stick. He tells him that he was acquainted with Drag Guildy and is pleased to see how his charge is coming along as an elemarian so he decided to pass him the last of Ultimaguil 5 great trials in that usb. The last trial is only shared with God A Sword elemarians but he felt that Swan earned the right to it. They talk about if he's given his final battle form any thought and he says he's not sure but training under Phoenix Guildy made him certain that he'd like to have wings. Mermaid says he's got the nurse affinity so she thinks an angelic form would suit him perfectly. Swan asks out of concern if it's true that Mermaid is dying, she smiles wistfully and says he must be happy to hear that. He asks why and she answers it's just a consequence of one who forsakes their elemera and that she and the Twintails' scientist share quite a lot in common.
>Downstairs Souji turns on the news and he sees the little girl from the bridge there. She's acting a lot more like an adult as she confirms with the newscaster with footage from the bridge that Feb 22nd is in indeed Tail Red's birthday. He tries to switch channels to get away from it but everywhere's talking about the newly christened worlwide holiday that is Tail Red day and he can do nothing about it. The girls have Solar dressed up in the winter school uniform. Twirl came up with a new set since the original set was given to Yuno and Twirl stresses that she can't have Souji's twintails wear clothes worn by an elemarian so Yuno can just keep them permanently. The roundabout kindness isn't lost on Souji. They talk about having Solar included in the birthday celebration as well since she's supposed to be Souji's twintails and get excited over it. Aika reminds them they have to be getting to school and they ask what Solar will do. She says she'll just stay at home till they get back but Erina insists she comes along as Solar Metca for her second coming to their school. Isuna tags along too since it's an off day for her and they leave together through the cafe. Passing through, they see the regular in middle of decorating the place for Souji's birthday days in advance. They congratulate him and remark at how coincidental it is that Tail Red's birthday is the same day. Miharu even had a banner set up that cheekily reads "Mitsuka Souji, Tail Red, Happy Birthday" that has him concerned. They also take quickly to Solar when she refuses an oilfield deed from the saudi regular and states that she's really more at home with Magma. Renka's over in the corner brooding as she drinks her morning pre-uni coffee sending some sharp stares Solar's way. Aika has to reassure her sister that Solar isn't going to be a problem.
>When they get to school, the students go wild and they bend over backwards to accomodate her. Isuna came dressed in black worksuit with shades for a bodyguard look and sits in with everyone in the class. As per the usual routine, the seats around Souji get vacated so the girls can sit next to him in class. Solar enjoys various activities through the day and the gang also dress up in bodyguard outfits to match Isuna so they look like they're guarding VIP Solar. The formerly Yuno fanclub has turned back into the Solar fanclub and they apologize for the switch and say they didn't intend to cheat on her. She savagely and aloofly responds that even though they didn't think it constituted as cheating, it's still cheating all the same. She's making a dig at Souji too.
>She's still shocked to see how easily Aika demonstrates her inhuman strength on Twirl when the latter tries to take advantage of the festivities to perv.
"Twoearle-chan, your body doesn't appear to be in the best shape... are you okay?"
"I've just been a little sleep deprived lately... it happens to me quite frequently actually."
"Twoearle-chan. The body is a slave to the mind... Strengthen your heart. Have more faith in yourself. If you do that, I promise you that you will definitely be able to overcome anything. Twoearle-chan's heart still shines brilliantly even now... please don't ever forget that."
"...you... you're not Souji-sama's twinta-"
>Souji's the only who notices their little exchange as the world around them almost seems forget their existence during. Solar's eyes flicked with a gold shine while she looking straight into Twirl's too and the latter cuts off when they notice Souji watching them. He waves at them so as to not look like he was watching the whole thing.
>It's the end of the school day and Solar's had a lot of fun. Souji takes her up alone to the rooftop to watch the setting sun. She tells him she's had a lot of fun today getting a taste of school life for the first in her eternity as a goddess and that there's plenty more mundane everyday things she'd like to do with them like fast food places, clothes shopping so she can ask Souji if she looks good in them and also she'd like to go to one of Isuna's concerts. Souji tells her they can do all that but not all in the same day but Solar replies that she can't because she doesn't have much time life. Specifically she's only got 10 minutes left. She's already used up close to 20 hours in all this time including today so she only has those few minutes left to spend materialized in the world. Souji says guesses that she actually does know why she ended up naked on his bed and she owns up to changing her mind at the last second. She just wanted to spend more time making memories with Souji. The naked manifestation was an accident though. Souji figures that everything she did today were things she's wanted to do for the longest time. She tells him that she only has those 10 precious minutes left with him so she has to use them carefully. She hasn't decided if she wants to use them up little by little to make short visits to him or use them all up in one go to fulfill one of the things she listed earlier. Whatever she decides, Souji tells her he'll always be up to escort her. She thanks him for it and bids him goodbye until the next time as she fades away into the sunlight.
Chapter 5 - Twintails of Evil
>It's Feb 21, the eve of Souji's birthday and the world is getting pumped up and NASA has announced that aliens have made first contact to celebrate Tail Red's birthday with them. No time for hijinxes though as Hades shows up again in an isolated area far away from people with Mermaid in tow. They congratulate Red on her coming birthday and Mermaid says she's come to give her present too. They ask Hades how he could partner up with Mermaid after all she's done and he tells him he's cooperating because what she was doing was fascinating him. The Twintails Mimic strategy seemed to have failed on the surface since none of the guildies could actually put a dent in their reputations. Even Blue whom the masses are afraid of has their trust in that she wouldn't outright cause destruction for the sake of it. The true goal of the strategy however was let Mermaid and Hades collect all the data they'd need to use Personify to a create evil counterparts to the twintails to fight them.
>Hades summons up four copies of his former self as Death Guildy and Mermaid passes them her own copy tail braces that she calls Tailgear Type X. This ticks off Red and she yells at Mermaid that Yuno wasn't going to happy to hear that name. Mermaid cheerily replies that the copyright holder is no longer around so she decided to rip off the name. Red doesn't get what she means by that but doesn't like how she said it.
>The death guildies take up their tail braces and morph into versions of themselves with matching armors in the twintails' colors. They do a roll call and call themselves Rouge, Bleu, Jaune and Noire Guildy in robotic fashion. Everyone summons their weapons and clash with their counterparts.
>Bleu riles up Blue by analyzing her chest to be 72cm and queries her how she is so flat. It says that it is incomprehensible that she can be so flat. Naturally this sets Blue off into berserker mode and Bleu also copies this by flashing out a hologram of a swimsuit gravure magazine featuring a busty model. Rousing up its own rage by staring at the busoms, Bleu also goes into a berserker rage and the two of them go at each other like animals. Red questions the point of even doing that and Hades remarks that they had too much data of Blue going berserk that they couldn't not use it for her counterpart.
>Black uses her illusion technique on Nowaru to surround it with a bunch of old men. It's not effective and Hades mentions that since the base of these evil twintails is his old self they also have his expertise in illusions so Noire activates its own attack on Black. The result is an illusion of Blue intimately caressing her while calling her cute. Black freaks out bad and begs for it stop and Red can't blame her for it.
>All this time through the encounter Twirl's gone quiet and it's got the gang worried since she's not responding to their calls. That's when Rogue comes slashing at them with it's sword that's taken on the shape of a twin pronged blade that only Red and Drag Guildy fought with. The disrespect towards Drag Guildy pisses her off major and they get into heated exchange.
>Yellow sees that Jaune only has a matchlock gun in hand so she gets ready to fire off a finisher in full blast mode but it turns out that it can materialize more parts out of its body to match Yellow's full blast mode. After firing off the ordinances, Yellow strips down as usual but this bugs out Jaune as it doesn't understand why Yellow would do that since it just reduces her own defenses. Hades comments that they did collect plenty of data on her stripping but in the copies can't comprehend what is incomprehensible to them. Hades takes another of Yellow's pervert levels and is fascinated by how it went up to 128000. He's intrigued at how their levels can vary on the situation like that.
>Mermaid takes the bug out as a sign to stop for the day and return to recalibrate the evil twintails. They leave through the gate and Hades bids them adieu as usual.
>Souji's still pissed when they get back to the base but when he sees Twirl's limp body at the monitor he and the others come running in panic. Twirl apologizes and tells them she couldn't operate like normal but they don't care about that and are more scared for her than anything. They take her to her room and Souji, Aika and Miharu take turns to make sure she gets the rest she needs.
>When it's Souji's turn at night, he finds her in front of the base monitor screen instead working and he tells her she should be rest but Twirl just says that she can't get any rest in that room so it's better for her to be out here working on the problem instead. Twirl apologizes to him and makes her confession of knowing how Mermaid managed to come up with these evil twintails. She tells him about how she saw her steal the Tailbrace Alter she made while looking at battle footage and that it really got to her. She's been quiet about it because of that and has been doing all these renovations and upgrades to keep her mind from thinking about it. She didn't mind it with Isuna and Yuno since they're worthy characters but seeing those elemarians copy and use her tech onscreen made her black out. She blames herself for not being able to help and for being powerless since she made the choice to just give her twintails and says that she can't stand being alone at the base while they're all fighting out there.
>Souji approaches her and hugs her tight from behind as thoughts of how both Twirl and Solar are prone to loneliness cross his mind. Twirl tells him to stop and says that she doesn't deserve any form of comfort from anyone. Souji asks back in turn why is it that she feels so guilty for letting others be kind to her. He tells her that it was her encouragement that got him through that time when he lost his twintails. She counters that's just because she was the only one that couldn't fight with the rest but he still insists that it saved him all the same.
"Taking pride in being alone isn't strength. That's just putting on a brave face. Right, everyone?"
>Turns out evryone was listening in by the door. They come in and echo the sentiment as well. Aika glares at Souji at how bold he's being towards Twirl and he springs back out embarassment at what he just did. It's way late so Erina's barely keeping away but she's happy to see that Twirl's better now. Souji suggests that they all have a sleepover in the base at seeing how Erina couldn't be getting home at this hour. They happily agree and this gets Twirl back to her usual self at the prospect of having a five way but Aika's obviously not having any of that. Souji feels the smirking presence of his mom from the corner of the ceiling as if she had learnt to ninja techniques but he dismisses the notion when he sees no one there. Mega Ne brings in all the futons and they lie down with Souji in the middle talking about what's to come.
>Next morning Twirl is quietly screaming at how she managed to come of that situation still a virgin to which Aika chides her for the antics. She herself is disappointed she didn't get to watch his sleeping face again this time since she was too far away from him to see it. They see Souji is up and Aika blusters out a happy birthday hoping that he didn't hear or understand that just now. She minces in some very tiny "I love you"s to make her resolution to confess to him from the previous volume but it Twirl shoots that those don't count.
>Souji goes to wash his face the base bathroom and Aika comes in to chat. She asks if he's afraid of how things are going to go the next time they're up against the evil twintails. Souji resolutely declares he isn't since they can't even manage to copy actual twintails from them.
"I figured as much. So that means you'll definitely be overcoming this one with twintails again, just like always... It's that headfirst attitude and straightforward part of you that I love you for."
Aika blushes and reaches out for lips at how she just let that slip.
"Ah, no that's... I didn't mean..."
"Thank you Aika."
She stares disbelievingly annoyed at him giving those sincere words of thanks.
"......Oh well. Guess I hit my goal in time at least.
"Goal?"
"Happy Birthday, Souji!"
>Just as she's done having her moment, Isuna pops up and tells her that her time is up. Apparently the girls were lining up waiting for her to finish with Erina next after Isuna.
>It doesn't take long for Hades and Mermaid to make their return again. They sortie out but this time they bring Twirl because Souji says they can't leave her behind for this one. They have her hide a ways a from the battle site so she doesn't get caught in the fight and meet with the guildies. Mermaid wishes Red a happy birthday but Red says the world has plenty wishes for her today so she doesn't need it from her. Blue, Black and Yellow immediately shift into their power ups and Twirl declares with a voice projector that the ripoffs don't deserve to be called Tailgears. Red follows up by summoning up the twintail brace and shifting into Ultimate chain which prompts Hades to ask her about it.
"Are you sure? We have plenty of battle data for the ultimate twintail and more won't hurt us.... you're just feeding the evil twintails drip by drip you know?"
"You can have it. I'm giving it to you. But even so, you guys absolutely won't be able to imitate my twintails! I'll show you a pair of twintails you just can't recreate with some data!!"
Chapter 6 - Twintails of The Goddess
>They engage with the evil twintails. Blue gets into an endless loop of using eternal chain's Break Elemerize copy ability against Bleu and vice versa. Twirl warns them not to let it go on too long since machines don't get tired. Rogue is now shooting back banter at Red after the update. Hades reveals that the longer the personifications exist the more solid their existence becomes and by now they've gained the ability to passively convert twintail energy from their surroundings into barriers areound themselves leaving the twintails at major disadvatage.
>Hades says he is tiring of this and that he doesn't care to watch the shams beat the real deal. This prompts Mermaid to move onto her prime objective, she's come to recruit Twirl. She even calls her out by name because she inscribes her name onto all her programs. Twirl was ready for that eventuality but corrects Mermaid when she assumes it an act out of pride rather than simple habit. Mermaid thinks the advances she's made with the Type X will entice Twirl thinking she's the same as her and she also offers to let Red go if she comes join up with them. Mermaid's mocking of Twirl's ideals and work is slowly causing Red to go berserk but before Red gets consumed by the rage she hears a voice telling her not to let her heart disappear from her twintails. It's Solar and she appears in a haze of light. This stops Red from overloading and Solar tells Red not to mess up her twintails like before.
>Solar appears in her goddess dress as seen on the volume cover and Mermaid is baffled at this asking this is Hades' personify ability at work. Hades however is freaking out and kneels down in fear at the girl in front of them thinking it's someone else he knows.
>Solar takes on a displeased dismeanor and scolds the twintails for letting their anger get the best of them. She tells to not forget kindness and not to let anger hurt their twintails as the world should embraced by gentle twintails. She then summons up some light and fashions it into a tailbrace on her wrist. Inside the elemera orb slot are streaks of the twintails' colors whirling around and she says she's going to borrow their power for a bit.
>Solar gives them a smile as she shouts out "Tail On!" and transforms into a bigger and bustier Tail Red dubbed Msty Tail Red. Twirl momentarily forgets her angst as lust takes over at how Solar's curves fill out the semi translucent armor. Solar sees this and says that her spirited self is the way Twirl should be.
>The evil twintails detect the massive power spike and gang up on Solar all at once. Red tells her that it's dangerous but she cheerily replies "Not at all?". She summons her own weapon called the Soul Blazer Blade which already splits down into dual sabers while very easily dodging the super fast strikes the evil twintails are swiping at her. She handles them just fine but Red sees that every strike she deflects causes momentary loss of her glow and figures out that she's rapidly using the power she was going to use to fulfill the things she wanted to do.
>She pushes back the evil twintails and offhandedly shoots two aura pillars at Hades and Mermaid. The latter got out of the way so Hades ended up bound by both of them. Solar finishes him by blasting him off into the sky with her personal break release, Ancient Blazer. Solar starts fading out of existence and Red runs up to catch her in a hug.
>The pair find themselves in their little world of hazy light as their naked natural selves. Souji asks why Solar used up her last few minutes like that and she assures him that those minutes were for her to do the things she's wanted to do. She flashes out her tailbrace onto her wrist and gives him a mischievious smile before she yells out "Tail On!". She doesn't transform but Souji can picture what she has in her head. She tells him that was the number one thing she wanted to do most of all. She loves and admires the tailgear for what it represents and says that a world where its creator doesn't smile has to be a lie.
"I'll be alright from here... I'll always have be smiling from now on after all. That's why you have to make that other twintail girl who's in such pain smile again. That's my final wish."
"...yeah. I promise I will."
"Oh, right. If you're so boithered by what it is that I still want to do then... I want you to make me feel like a girl just for a little bit, right at the very end."
She's embarrased as she makes her request. It's something that can't be done alone, even as a twintail. She calls his name out one last time and pulls him in closer with her arms wrapped around his neck and eyes closed. Souji feels the warmth of her soft lips on his. He thinks to himself it's strange he's not embarassed by it and thinks it might be because her wish was such a pure one.
>Back in reality, everyone else only saw the big Tail Red kissing the little Tail Red in stunned and very confused silence. Solar demorphs and looks to the rest before facing Red again. She gives simple "See you again" and she disappears. Red answers back they will, as long she loves twintails, definitely. While this is going on, Mermaid has just finished rolling around to put out the fire she barely dodged earlier. Red goes back into engage with Rogue but to the latter's surprise, Red's movements are now silky smooth like Solar's. Mermaid and the evil twintails are baffled and Red's declaration that she's just going back to her roots and fighting for the sake of twintails again instead of anger.
>Both the gang and the evil twintails fall back in line to face off the other side and Red activates a new hope mode for the tail calibur which seems to share elemerition effects with the others and also set up a power link between them. They start pushing back the evil twintails with their combo attacks and an update on Yellow's masochism gives them a freebie when the result is that both a confused Rogue and Jaune let themselves get hit by Yellow. All this while Red is preaching the how twintails have the merit of being able to be tied to each other and Mermaid gets increasingly infuriated at how it doesn't make sense. After comboing with Blue to counter Bleu's use of the time warping and damage reversal Childhood elemera using a new Clock mode for the Tail Calibur which cuts through time itself in a King Crimson way, Red feels the sword surging with power from all four of them and finishes them off with a new break release - God blazer. It's described as a long pillar of rainbow light cutting through their enemies and the sky. As he dies in the beam of light Rogue says, "Analysis. Possible. Replication. Impossible. So these are twintails..."
>Hades shows back up completely scorched. His personify core was cracked but he says it's worth it just for having witness everything that jsut happened. He also remarks that the power the twintails used to finish the evil twintails off isn't something they have a proper handle on just yet.
>Apollo shows up without her white robe and gleefully congratulates the twintails for winning. She says she's looking forward to fighting them. They call her out on not doing her job as the commander of God A Sword and letting Mermaid run amok the way she did. Apollo then surprises them by saying she's not the commander. She tells them if she wants the commander she should be addressing her instead. She then grabs Mermaid by the arm throws her at the gang hard enough to leave a crash trail in the ground. Apollo reveals all the misdeeds Mermaid got up to and how she managed to manipulate her way to the top of God A Sword in the shadows. Both Hades and Apollo leave her them as Mermaid can allow stare at the ground in a defeated posture.
>They ask her why she did all this and she answers that she did it so she could be come the same as the leader. The leader took out her elemera core to get as powerful as she did so Mermaid did the same took out hers. They balk at the idea of it since elemera are the elmarians' life source but she points out that it's not without precedent as she points out how Souji lost his elemera only to reignite it stronger than ever.
>Hades warps over to the Leader's dimension to report what happened and finds that the Leader is very, very happy since she could Tail Red's power reached all the way there. Hades asks that she be patient and wait for them to reach this space but she tells him that she can't promise that she won't go to them instead. She muses what lines she should prepare for their meeting when Red will learn who she looks like. They talk of Mermaid's state and Hades says that it's all going according to Mermaid's expectations.
>Back with the gang, they have Mermaid at their mercy. Mermaid teasingly offers to clue them in top secret info before she dies but Blue just raises her lance and brings it down on her in disgust.
Epilogue - A Most Wicked Awakening
>Blue is stopped by Swan Guildy deflecting her lance away from Mermaid. They ask if he's here for revenge but he tells them he's not here for such a petty reason. He just couldn't abide by and watch someone's who lost their will to fight die like this. They ask why would he save her after all that she's done and how it can only be labelled as evil. He says he's very aware of what she's done but it's still not a death she deserves and he tells them that Mermaid is going to die soon enough anyway. After some hesitation they let Swan handle her final moments and he goes to bring her away but then she suddenly declares she made it in time.
>Turns out everything was all an act to buy time for her to finish processing and absorbing the evil twintails data into herself. She gloats at how very close it was and that Blue was the biggest threat to her as the process protects her from Blue's attacks. She was even willing to give up Ultimaguil's deepest secrets to get those extra seconds but never did she think it would be Swan that saves her. She mockingly thanks her darling for it saying men will do anything if a girl tells them she loves him. They ask if everything about her was just lie but she answers that it was still all true, including the part about liking Swan.
>She holds something out for them to see and tells them it's the elemera orb she dug out but to their shock the elemera inscribed on it is the Twintail elemera. She also takes out Twirl's Tailbrace Alter and locks it onto her wrist. She thanks Twirl for it since it was the key she needed to evolve. She pushes her elemera orb into the brace and both start melding into Mermad's arm. The final battle form transformation takes place as Mermaid takes on a new form. She apologizes to Swan for it as she's the one with wings instead of him. She dubs herself Angel Guildy now for having overcome death. She's a Tailgear elemarian now with a twintail power of zero.
>Before she leaves she mocks Twirl being such a tragic girl who made a really stupid decision. It was one for an elemarian to dig out their elemera orb but another thing for a human to cast away their own affinity. She tells them doing so with stricken her body with a gradual weakness and increasing bouts of fatigue and sleeplessness. Red screams at her to stop saying anything more but the world freezes over and turns white for the twintails at her next words.
"You're going to die very soon, Twoearle-chan."