“Control to ground team, repeat, control to ground team, how copy, over?”

“Loud and clear, control, over.”

For whatever godforsaken reason, Saki had absolutely insisted on us communicating through 「Fearless Leader」as if we were using walking talkies. Considering we had never once had ‘bad reception’ and we had no reason to use callsigns, I could only assume that her normally hidden chuunibyou side had surfaced. But I wasn’t enough of a spoilsport to not at least indulge her in her fun this one time.

“What is the status of your ability, over?”

“All working as planned, over.”

She was, of course, referring to my 「Illusionist」invisibility. After spending much of my free time practising, I found that I was able to keep my invisibility up almost indefinitely when out of combat. However, when briefly sparring with Saki after school hours, I found that I exhausted my ability to use it far quicker in tense situations. Which meant that I had to do everything in my power to avoid confrontation.

I crept through the facility as quietly as I possibly could, slowly mapping it out in my mind. It had the sort of industrial look you would expect from this sort of place, with grey walls and loads of rooms filled with machinery. I recognised some of them as similar to apparatus that Mai used, though on a far larger scale.

But those weren’t the sorts of rooms I was looking for.

“Control to ground team, any sign of a manager's office or other places where documents might be kept, over?”

“None as of yet, control. Ground floor seems to be filled almost entirely with machinery. Will keep you updated as I go, over.”

“10-4, ground team. I’ll wait on standby for now.”

The plan was reasonably simple. I would sneak around until I found a room of interest, after which I would deploy the drone we used previously. Saki, from a safe position outside, would operate the drone and use it to photograph any documents that could be useful. It was imperative that the documents not be stolen or moved, as it would tip off our adversaries that someone had been snooping, thereby rendering the information useless.

I advanced further through the building, still not making the faintest sound. The facility seemed to be entirely empty of people, but I still didn’t want to chance it.

The first floor seemed to be as devoid of useful information as the ground floor, leading me to rather quickly ascend to the top floor.

I was pleasantly surprised to happen across a locked door almost immediately. What was even more surprising, however, was that I could faintly hear voices through the door. I was unable to make out what they were saying, but I knew one way I could eavesdrop.

“Ground team to control, I’m deploying the drone. Make sure you record audio. Over.”

“Audio? Copy that, ground team. Ready when you are, over.”

I silently flicked the drone on, placing it on the ground in front of me. As Saki took control, it squeezed through the incredibly small gap in the door without making a sound.

Advances in surveillance technology both astounded and terrified me.

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I had expected Saki to keep me updated as she heard the two parties speak, but I instead found my head entirely silent of her thoughts for quite the while. All I could hear was the muffled voices of two people, one male and one female, slightly reverberating through the partially soundproofed door.

Just as I was thinking of asking for a sitrep, Saki’s thoughts were once again transmitted to my mind.

“Change of plans, ground team. Extract ASAP. I repeat, get out of their ground team. Control out.”

“Copy that, control. Be with you in a moment. Over and out.”

Despite still insisting on think-talking in military jargon, Saki’s message seemed seriously urgent. I quickly retrieved the drone which had come back out from under the door and quickly left the building. I still kept my footsteps quiet, but knowing that the only two people in the building were in a partially soundproofed room gave me the leeway to be a bit riskier and get myself out quick.

Before long, I had left the facility and reconvened with Saki.

***

“So, that person really is Shin Nomimoto?” The gruff voice of a middle aged man played through the recording. His face was obscured in the video.

“It certainly seems that way. Though this is definitely the most outlandish way of evading us that he’s come up with yet.” The response came from a teenage girl. I recognised the voice as that of the magical girl who ambushed me during our last mission.

“That boy… no matter, with Operation Beelzebub finally in its latter stages, he’ll be little more than a mosquito biting at an elephant soon.”

“Actually, sir, on the subject of Operation Beelzebub…”

“Yes? Spit it out, Kagami.”

“Well, in the last week there have been three groups of Lillim taken from us.”

“What? By those four meddlers?”

“No, I don’t believe so. Rather, I believe they made allies of the first group saved, and have since sent them to free more. If this is allowed to snowball, the army we created may wage war against us.”

“Then don’t allow it to do so. Do whatever is in your power to stop the insects buzzing around our operation.”

“We already plan to ambush them at what we believe to be their next target. But, since there are now twelve active hostile magical girls on top of the first four, our current forces may not be enough. I want reinforcements from Thread.”

“You’ll have them. Just see that it’s done.”

“Yes sir.” After a short back and forth about logistics that neither Saki nor I really understand, the conversation seemed to be wrapping up.

“If that’s all, will you be on your way?”

“As soon as I’m done with my tea, sir.”

Now I understood why Saki had hurried me out of the building. I likely missed 「Shapeshifter」by a minute at most.

“We need to warn Hana and the others, ASAP.” As soon as the video ended, Saki spoke with urgency in her voice.

“Seems like they're taking an aggressive response to Hana’s teams actions. They’ll need to lay low for a while.”

“Yeah, we can’t put them in any more danger than we already have.” Hana and her squad had already rescued two more kidnapped groups of girls since our first infiltration, with a little help from Mai with regards to tracking them down. It seemed like their actions had already gotten our enemies scared, which was a good sign, but it also meant the risk factor had increased substantially.

“But anyway, what was all that other crap about? Operation Beelzebub? Some guy called Shin Nomimoto?”

“Not a clue. But it definitely sounds like Akuyaku and the magical girls are planning something big together.”

I was half-lying. While ‘operation Beelzebub’ meant nothing to me, I knew exactly who Shin Nomimoto was. He was the same boy who blew the whistle on Inzen back in ‘25. And because I knew who he was, I wanted to keep the girls from trying to find him at all costs. As such, I quickly changed the conversation.

“The girl, I recognised her voice. That’s 「Shapeshifter」.”

“The one who tried to kidnap you in our last mission?”

“Yeah. I’m positive.”

“Which means that, that man…”

“He was likely the ‘him’ that she was talking about that time. For whatever reason, that man wants to meet the four of us. And specifically, it seems he wants to meet me.”

I was once again omitting a certain truth. I had an awful hunch as to who that man may be and why he may want me specifically, but I kept it to myself.

“Well, what’s important right now is that we established a definite link between the magical girls and the pharma company, and we now have a potential lead on what they’re planning. Come on, let’s get moving so we can tell Nao and Mai about what we found.” Saki somewhat cheerfully turned around and began wandering back home, not stopping for a moment to question what I had said.

And why would she? Friends are supposed to trust each other, right?

So just how much longer could I continue lying to the people I cared about?