“I’m glad to hear they took it well,” said Mai. I had recounted the story of the day before to her while we were walking from the train to school. “But wow, the family you were given for witness protection officially adopting you as their own. That almost sounds like a movie plot.”

“It still doesn’t feel entirely real. All this time, there was part of me that still believed our whole family was just a sham to keep up appearances. For them to officially make me their son… it means the world to me.”

Mai walked in front of me and turned around, looking me in the eye with an expression so cute it almost put me into cardiac arrest

“Guess that means all that’s left to do is tell them about our engagement, right?”

“You make it sound easy.”

The idea of telling my parents that Mai and I had decided to get married despite having only been together for a month was a frightening one. Under any other circumstances, it would have been madness to rush into such a thing so fast. Even if mum and dad had accepted my decision to put my life on the line as a magical girl, they’d likely question why I was so desperate to rush into a lifelong commitment like marriage so quickly.

It wasn’t exactly easy to explain the gravity of the situation we had been put in.

“Well, I’m sure they’re more likely to come round to the idea than my parents are. Considering… y’know… they still think we’re a lesbian couple.”

“I feel really bad about lying to your parents like this.”

“I don’t feel great about it either, but I have my doubts that they’d be okay with me dating the one guy at an all girl’s school. Your circumstances may be exceptional but disguising yourself as a woman and entering a female-only space is something that’ll draw negative attention either way.”

“We really can’t afford that sort of headache right now. You planning to wait until after this is all over and done with?”

“I think we have to. It sucks, but I see no other choice.”

Though I had let the Sora identity crumble away for those close to me, I still had to maintain it publicly at least until graduation. That inevitably meant having to lie to people like Mai’s parents, regardless of how much guilt it caused me.

I silently resented the facade I had cloaked myself in, and hoped for the day to come soon in which I could shed it for good.

***

“Still no Kei?”

Saki pointed out the elephant in the room as the four of us sat at our desks. For the third day running, Kei had failed to show up for school. Prolonged absences due to sickness weren’t rare, but no one seemed to have any idea what was wrong with her.

“I tried texting and calling her yesterday but I’ve got radio silence back. Not even a read receipt. Even if she is sick, this is so unlike her,” said Mai with concern.

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“Are you girls talking about Mira-san?” Our conversation was interrupted by our teachers, who had overheard our conversation and come over to where we were sat. “By the sounds of it, none of you know where she is either.”

“Either?” I asked

“Yes, we’re unsure too. She hasn’t called in sick this week, and all attempts to contact her parents have failed too. If we hear nothing today, we’ll be sending a wellness check to her home, and if that fails we may have to open an investigation with the police.”

“Wait a minute, you’re saying she’s not just absent, she’s actually missing?”

“We are as of yet to unsure, which is why I hoped that as her friends the four of you may have been able to shed some light on her sudden truancy, but it appears you’re just as in the dark as we are. Sorry to have bothered you.”

“No, not at all. We’re concerned about our friend, so knowing the school is taking steps to make sure she’s safe is a relief.” Though I said that to the teacher, in truth I was more concerned than ever before.

“Missing? Something about this gives me a really bad feeling,” said Saki after making sure our teacher was out of earshot. “Especially if her parents can’t be contacted either. This could be serious.”

“I was thinking the same thing. Nao, Mai, do you guys reckon you could add Kei’s information to the spynet, see if we can track her down?” I asked, though I felt like I was grasping at straws.

“We can definitely try, but I have no idea how successful we’ll be.”

“I-I can scrape photos from her social media and feed it to the algorithm, that could help.”

I breathed a slight sigh of relief at their affirmation, but knew that it didn’t guarantee anything. It relied entirely on her entering the view of the cameras we had hacked.

“Mum and Dad have contacts in the police, I’ve already asked them to look into the girls from Flame, adding one extra name shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“I… I don’t think the police will be able to do much about this.” Mai took a surprisingly pessimistic outlook for once. The following silence prompted her to continue talking. “What do you guys know about Kei’s family life?”

The question took me off guard, and what surprised me even more is that I had no answer.

“I… I don’t know anything. She never talked about it. Even when I asked, she brushed me.” Saki, the one amongst us that was closest to Kei, seemed to be in a similar predicament.

“Well, I don’t know anything for certain, but I’ve heard whispers. Some people say she’s a victim of neglect. Others say she has no family at all. Either way, her relationship with her parents is supposedly either bad or non-existent.”

“So you think she might be being abused or neglected and that’s why she’s not showing up?” Saki’s question was reasonable, but for some reason I doubted that’s what Mai was getting at. A moment later, Nao explained that doubt away.

“I-I think I see what Mai is getting at… a teenage girl with a questionable home life goes missing without a warning? It’s the same MO as the magical girl kidnappings.”

That bombshell dropped on me and Saki hard enough to render us speechless.

That was exactly correct. Kei’s disappearance lined up incredibly well with the kidnappings perpetrated by our enemies.

“Hana said that, though she managed to save every hostage she could find, she never managed to capture the magical girls responsible for their capture. Could they be…”

“Trying to rekindle their efforts? That was my thought too.” Mai finished my sentence for me. We shared a grimace as the gruesome idea. Someone from our own class, our friend no less, potentially being the victim of a kidnapping?

It was possible this was just an unfortunate coincidence, but it didn’t sit right with me.

“Hana fought these guys, right?” Saki asked

“The other magical girl groups outside of Flame? Yeah, her and her team engaged all of them at least once, I think.” I tried to recall what Hana had told me about her escapades both before and after the defeat of the Director.

“Well, here's a suggestion: why don’t we ask her tonight?”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah, tonight. When we have our sparring session with her and her girls.”