“Life is suffering.”

It had been the better part of a day since she injected herself with the serum, and Mai still showed no signs of developing magical girl powers. Considering that it was practically instantaneous for the rest of us, we were forced to conclude that it just didn’t work on Mai for some reason.

Considering how worked up she had gotten herself at the idea of becoming a magical girl, she was taking the news pretty hard.

“Does there exist no god in this cruel world? Or does he merely wish to toy with me? Am I simply the plaything whose suffering he currently relishes in? Wherefore am I the lone party in this agony? Doth misery not enjoy company?”

Needless to say she wasn’t in the best of moods. But we had other matters to attend to.

“Hana, you’re sure this is the place?” Saki asked

“Don’t just ignore my sad monologue like that!”

“Am I sure? No. Not at all. But something draws me to it. It feels like I had some sort of strong connection to this place in those few months where I was under their control.”

“That’s enough of a reason to check it out, at the very least. Everyone remember the plan?”

After we explained the situation to Hana yesterday, we asked her to try to recall anything she could that would give us the edge in our fight against the magical girls. After racking her brains for a bit, she said she might be able to guide us to a place in Akihabara with significance to their schemes. We looked the place up online, and formulated a plan.

First, I would enter the building while invisible. After a little testing I had found that my ability lasted much longer when outside of combat, so as long as I judged my timing correctly I’d be safe. I would covertly sneak around the building, looking for signs of magical girl or cult activity.

I would also bring with me a tiny remotely controlled drone with a camera that could fit under doors, in under to survey any places behind a lock. For some godforsaken reason, Mai just had one of these things lying around.

As the only one of us without powers, Mai would remain outside of the building and pilot the drone, relaying information to us with the camera. Once the building was fully scouted out, the other three girls would move in to extract any ‘cult members’ in the building. To achieve this, all four of us had a syringe filled with Nao’s antidote on hand. It was a large building, so we’d likely be splitting up. To ensure that we could still communicate, Mai would be relaying what she sees from our headcams to Saki by earpiece, who would then use 「Fearless Leader」to send those same messages to us.

This would be the first time we had taken the aggressive move, so we were unable to guess how large the response would be, but we knew we were poking the hornet's nest. For that reason, we were hoping to end the fighting as soon as possible.

“I’ve got a question. If Mai is just waiting outside, wouldn’t it have been less dangerous to just leave her at home and have her do her job from there?” Sunao raised a fair point, but Saki shot it down immediately.

“Our enemies know our identities. Mai is safer if we’re nearby, her home could already be compromised. That’s why I’ve been having you girls stay at mine overnight too.”

It was a good point, and one that I was shocked that I hadn’t thought about myself. Flame Of Time knew our identities. With the influence and power they had, it wouldn’t be difficult for them to find our home addresses.

Suddenly, Mai’s inability to defend herself from superpowered opponents was making me anxious. But that was a problem for a different day. I had to keep my head clear for what was to come.

“Everyone ready to play their part?” Saki asked.

“Ready when you are.” I replied.

“I-I’m ready.” Said Mai.

“I’m all set.” Said Hana.

“Ready to warm the bench, as mine god hath abandoned me.” Said Mai.

“Great. I’ll bring Shakespeare over here to the place I want her hiding out. As soon as I return, Sora will enter the building.”

Saki left with Mai, only to return momentarily to give me the green light to enter.

Waltzing in through the front door would effectively be suicide, but luckily there was a ground floor window that was just open enough for me to squeeze my way in. The second I entered the building, I activated 「Illusionist」and began making my way around the ground floor. Each floor wasn’t particularly large, but there were a total of four floors in the building that had to be explored.

The ground floor was dark and dingy, barely having enough light for me to move around effectively. There were four rooms on the floor, but three had open doors and mostly consisted of tools, weapons and syringes.

I got the feeling that this was definitely the right place.

‘Mai says to drop the drone at the base of the locked door and wait.’

Saki relayed her thoughts to my mind, confirming that the plan would proceed as we had hoped. I took the tiny drone out of my pocket, switched it on and gently put it down on the floor.

Silently, it slipped under the door and continued into the room. I waited there for what felt like minutes, but was likely less than thirty seconds, not moving a muscle.

‘Mai just confirmed that there’s someone in cult robes that’s locked in stasis in that room. Looks like we were right on the money.’

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

As the drone appeared back from under the door, I breathed a silent sigh of relief as I bent down to pick it up. If we’re really able to free these girls today, we’ll have made our first big stride towards putting a stop to the nefarious plans the magical girls are trying to carry out.

‘Continue onto the next floor, but step very carefully. They’re wooden stairs so they might creak.’

It was after Saki said this that I realised my heart rate was through the roof. Even though everything had gone well so far, I felt my nerves building. One false step could bring this whole operation crashing down, and I would be the one paying the price.

Silently and carefully, I crept up the stairs and repeated the same process as last time. The first floor was nearly identical to the ground floor. Barely any light. Four rooms. Only one locked door.

Two of the three unlocked rooms were similar to the previous rooms, being filled with CQC weapons like swords and hammers. The third, however, had a faint humming sound coming from it. Inside the room, I saw a fridge in the corner that seemed to be running. It was small and looked surprisingly expensive for the place it was in. It definitely did not seem like it was being used to store people’s lunches. After confirming that no one was nearby, I transmitted my thoughts to Saki.

‘Should I check the contents of the fridge? Could be important.’

‘Negative. If anyone in the building is conscious the noise could alert them. We’ll have time to search the place properly once we’ve accomplished our main objective.’

‘Roger that. I’ll get moving to the locked door, then.’

I slowly crept my way back across the room and repeated the process as before.

‘Mai confirmed there’s one on this floor too.’

Content that I had checked everything I could, I moved onto the second, and finally the third floor. Mai confirmed the presence of a cultist on all four floor, which meant that the four of us in the field were all gonna have to take one on each. We had decided beforehand that we would engage all targets simultaneously, hoping to overwhelm any resistance and finish the job as quickly as possible. I would remain on the third floor, while Nao, Hana and Saki would take the ground, first and second respectively.

‘We’re moving in. Mai can see all of our cams so she’ll relay when we’re all ready.’

‘Roger that. I’ll sit tight.’

I stood on standby outside the door to the locked room on the third floor for a couple of minutes, before Saki’s thoughts appeared in my head once more.

‘Okay, everyone is in position. Infiltrate on my mark. Understood?’

‘Understood.’ I presumed that Hana and Nao also responded in kind, though the only node of communication was to and from Saki so I wasn’t actually aware of them.

‘Ready… infiltrate!’

Throughout the building, the sound of four doors being kicked down simultaneously sounded out, as all four of us engaged our targets at once.

As I had expected, the robed figure I was seeking to inject with antidote rose up from its stasis to engage me. What I wasn’t expecting, however, was for her to address me by name.

“Sora Goto. I’ve expected your arrival all day. Come to free my captives, I presume?” As she spoke, the robes dissolved from her body, revealing a pure black magical girl outfit. In fact…

“Is that… my outfit?”

“Indeed. I took quite a liking to it when I saw it. So I decided to adopt it for myself.”

It was a trap. This girl wasn’t a kidnapped student. She was a magical girl.

‘We were tricked! I’m being engaged by a magical girl, requesting immediate backup.’

‘Sorry, we’re all occupied! These cultists put up one hell of a fight when you’re on your own. You’ll have to buy time for now!’

My stomach dropped. I was gonna have to engage this unidentified magical girl alone. What’s more, I wasn’t getting the advantages of Saki’s 「Fearless Leader」passive ability because we weren’t engaging the same foe, and I had just used 「Illusionist」for a substantial period of time, meaning I wouldn’t be able to use it much in battle.

“I still don’t understand your motives. Why are you all doing this? Kidnapping innocent civilians? Parading yourselves around as heroes? What are you hoping to achieve?” I hoped that I’d be able to buy time with speech, though I knew it would be a temporary measure at best.

“You’ll understand soon enough, Sora Goto. You’ll understand when you meet Him.”

As she spoke of ‘him,’ there was a deep reverence in her tone. As if she were speaking of a god or some other great being.

“Him? Who are you talking about?”

“All in good time, Sora Goto. In fact, I plan to bring you to him myself. However, in your current form you may pose a danger to him. So I’ll have to hurt you just enough to neutralise you as a threat. I hope you don’t mind.”

The very moment she finished her deranged ranting, she attacked me with unbridled violence. A flying kick aimed directly at my head, with such force that blocking it sent me flying out of the room.

By the fact that she was using no weapon, I presumed she was serious about taking me alive. And by the fact that this was the only floor that didn’t have any weapons for me to take, it was clear that she had planned this encounter out this way.

She didn’t give me a single moment to breathe, as she followed me out of the room with a flurry of kicks, all too fast for me to effectively dodge, and all too powerful for me to effectively block.

I recognised the style. Taekwondo. With superhuman strength and speed, a martial art that relied on fast and heavy kicks and sheer aggression was brutally effective.

Realising I had to get out of the situation at all costs, I desperately used 「Illusionist」to make myself momentarily invisible and to leave a clone behind for her to continue attacking. I was only able to use it for little more than a second, but it was enough.

I turned the the tables in an instant with a heavy straight left punch, my 「Illusionist」wearing off the very moment it landed. I followed it up with a low left hook to her liver, then a high left hook to her head. It was a brutal combo, and I planned to finish it a snap kick to her head, a finale that would put almost anyone on the ground when executed right.

But I hesitated.

I hesitated, not because it was my own visage that stared back at me, but that of Mai.

That hesitation was fatal, and it allowed her to land a push kick into my chest and put some distance between us.

“Aww, does the idea of hurting Amai Sugi put you off so much that you can’t even hit me? How pitiful. I’m afraid that my 「Shapeshifter」has more functionality than to simply hide my identity.”

As much as it pissed me off, she was right. As long as she was wearing Mai’s face, it would be difficult for me to fight with intent to hurt.

But if her 「Shapeshifter」was anything like my 「Illusionist」, it would fade if I kept the pressure up. Then I’d be able to figure out who this bastard really is.

I took the initiative to re-engage my enemy, starting with a blindingly fast low kick into her calf. To my own surprise, however, I found myself momentarily closing my eyes on impact, as if to keep myself from seeing Mai’s face as I attacked.

Unfortunately, that short moment was a fatal error.

The magical girl allowed my kick to make contact, bracing perfectly and remaining on her feet, before using my short moment of unawareness to throw a risky but powerful punch directly into my gut.

I immediately recoiled from the pain, taking several steps back, but my opponent was relentless.

The strike had rendered me breathless, and a series of kicks followed directly after that forced me to dodge frantically. Between being short of air and having a number of powerful strikes aimed directly at my head, I’d be lucky to remain conscious for much longer.

But, as suddenly as they had began, the kicks stopped coming. I was still out of breath and hurt badly, but my opponent was no longer attacking. Instead, she was clutching her arm and howling in pain. Embedded in said arm was a kunai, thrown with good power but seemingly poor accuracy. And in the direction the knife came from…

“Step away from my friend, you face-stealing bitch.” There stood Mai, ready to face down an opponent she could never beat.