Time

Magical girls grow up to be ordinary women. It happens slowly, as life gets busier, and disappearing at a moment's notice becomes harder, and reaction times get longer fraction by fraction. Tasks are delegated to the younger girls until one day they find that instead of worrying about the fate of the world, they're standing in a supermarket reading down a list of groceries, indistinguishable from any other woman in the place.

Sometimes, they'll even look up and see a familiar face – a comrade-in-arms or a nemesis grown similarly old. What happens then varies. They might nod to each other, or go for coffee, or pretend that they didn't see anything at all. Once in a while, if it's a nemesis, they decamp to the parking lot to do battle. And rarely, but every now and then, that nemesis walks towards them, takes them in their arms and holds them tight.

'You made it out too,' they whisper. 'You made it out too.'

And around them, the other shoppers politely ignore the two people crying quietly inthe bakery section.