By Takehaya and Poco. Released in Japan as “Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!?” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Warnis.

This wraps up, for now, the dark magical girl arc of the series, though I’m sure they’ll be back in some capacity. They’re not likely to be the Big Bads of the entire series, though – Maya and Elexis are clearly filling that position. We can also tell by the fact that Darkness Rainbow is slowly losing its cohesion – not that it had much to begin with. Maki defected to the side of the heroes, Crimson is happy to do whatever as long as she gets a fight, Green is, frankly, in denial about a crush on Crimson and also wishes the group could be better friends, and as for Purple, well, she’s the Big Bad of this book specifically. The moment we saw her backstory in the prologue we knew it wouldn’t be pretty. Maki’s defection means we need a new Dark Magical Girl to contrast with Yurika, who has friends, a guy she likes, and magical powers and the smarts to use them. Given all that, why WOULDN’T Purple try to open a hell portal?

Speaking of which, time to gush about my favorite character again. She’s still in “awesome” mode here, and the author says in the afterword that he intentionally made her super weak and whiny because her magic had the potential to be a deus ex machina. Now she’s matured (though I’m sure when they get back to Room 106 and she’s studying she’ll backslide), and we also find out an interesting tidbit from Nana, her predecessor – Yurika became an archwizard in about half the time anyone else did. Including Nana. I also really loved the dialogue about love between her and Koutarou, as both of them hate to see the other looking like a “soldier” rather than a happy-go-lucky teenager. This is what the others want to see from Yurika – not necessarily the lazy whining, but Yurika at peace and not worrying about the next threat.

This wraps up an arc, but there’s plenty of setup for the next few books, which promise to take the action back into space. We learn that the People of the Earth and Yurika and Nana’s magical kingdom (I’ve given up on figuring out if Yurika is from Earth or Folsaria, frankly) are the descendants of the evil alchemists and mages that Koutarou and Clan helped defeat in the past. And, of course, everyone got away – again. So while Folsaria has settled down, I’ve no doubt that after a volume or two of fluff (gotta have contrast), we’ll be headed back to Forthorthe for a while. (We’re right about at two/thirds through this series, though given the short word count of each book it doesn’t seem that long.) In any case, Yurika and company saved the day, and even got a kiss out of it. Well, she and Maki initiated the kiss. And it’s on Koutarou’s cheek. But it’s a start! Please fix this emotionally broken boy.

So a good Rokujouma, with lots of fighting and desperate measures and the like. Also, Yurika, Maki, Clan and Kiriha fuse, which made me imagine this as a Steven Universe crossover.