“You guys might wanna stand back. This thing burns at up to 2400 Kelvin.” At Nao’s warning, the three of us all took a step back as she lit the large and expensive-looking Bunsen.
On the bunsen’s vent, I noticed small markings that seemed to be some sort of temperature scale. I couldn’t make heads or tails of if, but Nao seemed to read and understand it effortlessly as she slowly opened the vent to adjust the temperature.
After what felt like minutes of extremely careful and slow adjustments, the mixture started to boil slightly. I noticed a slight smile on Nao’s face, which I read mean that the boiling point of one of the chemicals aligned with what she had predicted.
After ensuring that the entirety of the first chemical had been boiled into gas, she noted down the boiling point in her notepad and went back to making very slight adjustments once again.
Over time, however, her expression changed. First from happy to neutral, then to steadily growing confusion, until finally she reached outright frustration. At no point did the second chemical show the faintest sign of bubbling. While the bottom of the flask had become black, and the first chemical had risen all the way to the top of the column, the second seemed entirely unmoved.
As the bunsen finally reached its maximum temperature, Nao sighed and cut her losses, filtering out the first chemical and turning off the bunsen.
The process was then repeated for every test at the table. Every time, the first drug gave the result Nao expected and elicited a small smile. And every time, the second drug clearly did the exact inverse, further frustrating her.
After an hour or so of tests, Nao finished filling in her table and turned to the rest of us, a confounded look upon her face.
“Well, I guess I’ll give the good news first.” She sighed before she continued, her smile not returning to her face. “The ‘mind control drug,’ the one they’re using to turn people into slaves, is one I’m familiar with. It’s a recently invented and extremely dangerous narcotic, one that makes one unable to perform higher brain function. Thankfully, it’s one that leaves a person’s system in around 24 hours. Even more thankfully, it’s also one I can neutralise.”
The other three of us shared a collective sigh of relief. There was finally a real, tangible way for us to make a difference in this fight. A way we could save those in need. Nao, however, continued to look frustrated.
“Here’s the bad news: this ‘magical girl serum,’ the thing that supposedly gives people superpowers? It’s a chemical that simply cannot exist.” Saki and I shared a look of confusion, but Mai seemed to understand what she meant.
“Can’t exist… does that mean the results you got break the laws of chemistry in some way?”
“It’s not that the results break any laws, it’s that there are no results at all. It has no reasonable boiling point but is somehow a liquid at room temperature. It’s neither basic nor acidic. It tested negative for halogen ions, alkali metal ions, hydroxide groups, benzene, double carbon bonding, everything. No reactivity to any common reactants. No identifiable functional groups. Nothing at all that could indicate it’s chemical makeup. It defies every conceivable law of chemistry all at once. Simply put, if it wasn’t in front of my face right now, I would deny that it exists at all.”
Her tone steadily grew from frustrated to outright pissed off. For someone who loved the absoluteness and rigidity of chemistry so much, a result that defies those laws so brazenly must feel like a personal insult.
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“That being said…” Nao sighed and picked up the beaker holding the drug again. “As far as I can tell, there are no known harmful agents in this formula. There’s no known anything else, but at this point that’s neither here nor there. I can say within reason that it’s as safe to take as it could possibly be.”
Saki flinched slightly at Nao’s words, and I let my own concern show on my face. Mai,9; course, was ecstatic.
“Then what are we waiting for? Load up that syringe and inject me, Nao-”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Maichan. You four have proven to be enough of an issue already.”
Before Mai had a chance to finish her sentence, she was cut off by a voice dripping with malice. At the door to the room stood a girl not much shorter than me, her face covered in a mask and her body draped in the clothes of Flame Of Time, the same group who had attacked us not 24 hours prior.
“Flame. Should have guessed there’d be more of you bastards here.” The veil fell in front of my face and I took up a defensive stance, prepared to engage my enemy.
“You left my teammates in quite the sorry state, Sora. But unlike them, I’m not some meathead who rushes to violence.” Her voice was strange and unnatural, as if it was modulated somehow. “I’m sure we can solve this problem with our words, can’t we?”
I didn’t feel like there was any compromise we could come to with these despicable people, but I was also hesitant to rush to violence if it could possibly be avoided.
“What are you trying to get out of all this? By kidnapping and enslaving innocent girls? Is it fame? Money? Influence? What could make you stoop so low?”
“Slave is such an ugly word, Sorachan. I prefer to think of them as… superpowered workhorses. Yes, that’s right. We don’t hurt or abuse them. We just give them an order and they happily comply. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement, really.”
“Mutual beneficial? Stripping someone of their free will and forcing them into servitude? Are you mad?”
Despite the mask, I could see a smile twist onto her face. If Yokoshima was manipulative and Shiko was misanthropic, this girl was outright sadistic.
“You just don’t understand how little ‘free will’ truly means this in world. In fact, that’s the very thing we’re fighting to protect. We may be breaking a few eggs here and there, but the omelette will be worth it in the end.”
“The hell does that mean?”
“If you ever meet him, I’m sure he’ll explain it to you. But if Naochan back there tried what she’s planning to try, I’m afraid the four of you won’t live that long.” A slight twitch in her face told me her eyes had flicked from myself to Sunao, who had been quietly filling a syringe with the serum while I kept the girl in front of me talking. “An antidote and a way to gain powers safely? I’m afraid that’s something I simply cannot allow. Hand over all the formula you have, and I’ll let the four of you live this time.”
Nao’s eyes grew wide as she realised the next moment would depend entirely on her actions. The syringe was only half full, so it wasn’t certain she’d have time to fill it and inject herself. Her only choices were to risk losing her life or to hand over our best chance at fighting back.
Her momentarily deliberation felt like a lifetime. A chill ran down my spine as I knew everything could go south in no time flat. Every person in the room watched as she made her decision.
She chose to take the risk.
I turned my attention back to the magical girl, but I was a hair too late as she put her arm out in front of her face.
“Time dilation!”
I was less than a foot from reaching her, but the sudden change in the passage of time left me utterly defenceless. In less than a tenth of a second, she incapacitated me with a brutal low kick that knocked me from my feet. One near-instant attack and she had already disabled our sole line of defence.
She leisurely strolled past me, a kunai she had previously been hiding in her hand, and approached Nao with intent to kill. At such a speed, no average person could hope to intervene.
Fortunately, Saki was no average person. She was, both through hard work and by nature, in the pinnacle of physical condition. And so, with just a tiny fraction of a second left to save Nao’s life, Saki threw a devastating punch that made contact with the magical girl’s face, throwing her completely off balance.
The event took place so quickly that Nao was put into complete shock, dropping the syringe from her hands as her mind processes the near-death situation she just narrowly escaped.
Without even a tenth of a second to think, Saki caught the syringe in mid air and stabbed it into her arm, injecting herself with the mysterious liquid that granted the user superhuman abilities.