When Mai said “the plan is simple,” I didn’t realise it was quite as simple as “wait at her train station early in the morning and talk to her when she shows up.” After all, this was the girl who meticulously sorted data on over a hundred students in a single night. Hell, I half expected her to have some elaborate plan to kidnap the poor girl or something.
Still, I was glad that she had come up with an idea that didn’t put us or Shiko in any overt danger. If I was gonna go along with this asinine idea, I could at least take solace in that.
Didn’t change the fact that this whole thing made me feel like a total creep. Figuring out how she gets to school then ambushing her when her guard’s down? What are we, paparazzi? I could only hope that this Shiko girl wouldn’t be too pissed off about all of this. I wasn’t looking forward to grovelling at her feet if it turned out she wasn’t the magnanimous type.
“I’m really not sure we should be doing this…” One look at Sunao’s face told me that I wasn’t the only one having serious doubts about this whole plan. Blinded by her trust in Saki though she may be, Sunao was still the most sensible one among my friends. With the initial hype wearing off, the gravity of the situation seemed to have set in for her. She seemed even more anxious than usual.
Maybe if I also shared their obsession I’d have failed to think critically too.
“You worry too much, Nao. What’s the worst that could happen? We’re just talkin’ to ‘er, we’re not gonna fight her or somethin’.” On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, our ever-optimistic leader Saki didn’t have an ounce of concern on her face. I wasn’t exactly surprised. Charging ahead without considering the consequences was just like her.
Then again, her boundless optimism still paled in comparison to that of our enigmatic fourth member.
“Hmm… judging by the route map, she should be here in the next three minutes or so…” Mai was pacing up and down like a lunatic, re-reading the mountain of notes she had made. I counted my lucky stars that the station was practically empty: her frantic and excited pacing and murmuring definitely would have drawn stares otherwise.
As we waited, I found myself absentmindedly staring at her. She had seemed like a completely different person these past couple of days, and I almost found myself reeling in surprise.
Amai Sugi was, to put it bluntly, an awful student. She showed up late, she rarely paid attention in class, and she seemingly had no interest in any of the material we were being taught.
That’s not to say she wasn’t smart. On the contrary, she had quite the brain in her head. Her logic and reasoning skills surprised me at every turn.
No, it wasn’t intelligence that she lacked. It was motivation. Amai Sugi quite simply did not care about anything enough to try. Unfortunately, that meant that her incredible brains and even more impressive diligence often went to waste.
Hence my shock when this magical girl obsession began. It was as if she had flipped to the polar opposite side of the spectrum. Where once she lacked any motivation at all, now she was motivated to the point of complete obsession. Forgoing sleep to keep working, disregarding people’s privacy, taking huge risks with no guarantee of pay off… It was like looking at a different person.
Truth be told, I was worried about her. Where previously I was concerned that her lack of motivation may be due to some underlying tendency towards depression, now her wealth of motivation had me worried that she was undergoing a sort of mania. The change was that drastic.
That being said, I liked this new side of her more than the old one. Seeing her finally have some passion for life made me happy. Even if I wished it came with significantly less criminal activity.
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“...Sora?”
“Yeah?”
“You’ve uh… you’ve been staring at me for quite a while. There something wrong?”
“Ah- no, nothing at all.” I felt a bit of red creep onto my cheeks. I realised I had been staring a hole through Mai’s back for at least a few minutes.
Luckily, as if god himself intended to save me from my embarrassment, our attention was drawn to the newcomer. An average-looking girl with long black hair. Aya Shiko.
As soon as she showed up, I had a bad feeling. She was wearing a scowl on her face, the sort of expression that said “don’t disturb me or I may kill you here and now.” And here we were. Preparing to disturb.
I hoped that the expression was just a sign that she wasn’t a morning person, and not a sign that we were about to get our asses kicked by an irritable magical girl. I sincerely wanted to pull out of the plan then and there, but I knew Mai and Saki would never accept that.
The two girls shot each other a look, then nodded as if they had come to some telepathic agreement. As soon as they did so, Saki approached Shiko and began casually chatting to her, just as we had planned.
“Hey there! You’re Shiko-senpai, right? From third year?” her cheery voice contrasted heavily with the unfriendly look on Shiko’s face.
“Hmm? What’s it to you?” Shiko’s response was a clear cut ‘stop bothering me,’ but Saki did what Saki does best and battering-rammed her way through that particular hurdle.
“Well, me and my group here were visiting a friend down in Meguro, when we saw you wandering around that shady bit of southern Shibuya. I thought it was a little weird, since you were so far from home.”
“So? I was there visiting a friend, same ‘s you.” This was a bluff on our part, and she took the bait perfectly. This was the first time any of us had laid eyes on Shiko, so we definitely hadn’t seen her in Shibuya. Her defence confirmed that she was definitely in that area recently.
“Here’s the funny thing, though,” said Mai, Saki bowing out to let her take the wheel. “When we turned the corner that we saw you walk around, you seemed to have disappeared completely. It was freaky.”
“I mean, I probably just went into my friend’s house.” Shiko was trying to keep composure, but I noticed a slight twitch as she spoke.
“But here’s the really odd thing: it was right in front of that big empty lot.”
“Hk-”
She fell right into Mai’s trap. Mai forced her to talk herself into a corner, then brought up the empty lot to probe her reaction. That involuntary sound of shock told us everything we needed to know. We had our girl.
She looked between us, trying to keep her expression straight and not show any weakness. Seeing the four of us surround her, however, seemed to make her realise that the jig was up.
“Alright, alright. What do you girls know?” she sighed as she spoke, frustrated that she let herself get trapped in conversation.
“There’s a building. Magically cloaked and floating some 20 metres in the air.” It was my turn to speak, putting on my sternest voice. Mai had elected me for this role because I ‘have this sort of oppressive atmosphere.’ In other words, she wanted me to be her bad cop. “We know it’s such a closely guarded secret that it’s members never fly there directly for fear of being followed. We know It’s tall enough to disrupt the flight paths of birds, and likely no larger than the empty lot it’s flying over. And we also happen to know that you’re one of the people guarding it, Ms Shiko.”
Shiko recoiled slightly under the pressure of my voice. Maybe Mai was right and I really do sound oppressive. Somehow I didn’t feel like that was a good thing.
“We also know that the people guarding it are magical girls, and that you’re one of them.” It was Mai’s turn to speak again, and she made her voice sound extra sweet. The good cop to my bad cop, trying to win her favour without losing the intimidation aspect. “We haven’t told a soul about the hideout, I swear. All we want is a chance to meet our heroes, and we’ll keep quiet. Think you can help us out? Please?”
Even though it sounded like she was being subservient, Mai dealt a decisive blow with that request. She brought up the possibility of leaking the secret both as a threat and as reassurance. In short, she was both lording our ammunition over Shiko’s head and playing the kind soul that would never betray your trust in one single move.
To be frank, it was almost scary. I had always known Mai to be a genuinely kind and affectionate person, if a little ditzy. To now see her talking circles around someone with carefully planned manipulation tactics was a shock I’d have never expected a few weeks ago.
Seeing the four of us before her and realising she had no way out, Shiko sighed once more.
“Meet me on the roof after school. We can discuss this then.”
My companions spent the rest of the day abuzz with excitement. I, however, still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss.