“Uhh, Mai? Do you mind?”

“Nope.” replied the brunette girl currently clinging to my body. She had even wrapped her legs around my waist, meaning I was supporting both of our weights. Were I not relatively strong, we’d almost definitely both be on the ground.

“So, to what do I owe the displeasure?”

“I’m glad you aske- wait, did you just casually say something really mean?”

“No idea what you’re talking about. Go on.”

“Hmph.” Mai pouted as she stood back on her own feet and released me from her hug. It was incredibly cute. “And here I was gonna tell you some super exciting news.”

For a moment I thought to apologise, but her getting all huffy was a sight for sore eyes, so I figured I’d let her sulk for a moment.

“Hey, Nao and I wanna hear the news too, y’know.” Saki immediately ruined it by drawing Mai’s attention, to which she instantly perked back up.

“Well, I suppose I can relent then.” She put on a fake expression of exasperation. Weren’t you the one who wanted to tell us? “So, you probably didn’t notice, but I snuck out the door while everyone was all excited after the fight.”

“I noticed.” I replied bluntly.

“Yeah, you weren’t all that subtle,” added Saki.

“I-I heard the door open and close as you left…” said Mai.

“Dammit, girls, I’m tryna tell a story here!” It was unclear as to whether she was actually annoyed that we interrupted her or just embarrassed that she failed at sneaking around. “Anyway, I managed to get outside the school building just quick enough to follow the magical girl for a while after she left!”

I suppressed a sigh at the realisation that my guess was correct.

Yes, in the whole academy, or maybe even the whole city, there were none more infected with magical girl fever than Amai Sugi. If Saki was an aficionado, Mai was an outright devotee. As soon as I saw her step out of the room, I had a feeling that she was gonna try and make contact with the magical girl. Reckless idiot. She knew exactly how dangerous that could be.

“Ooooh, didja manage to talk to her or see her face or anything?” Saki, who shared Mai’s complete lack of concern for danger, urged her to go on.

“I’m afraid not, dear Saki, but I did manage to see something nearly as important!”

“What was it? Don’t just string us along!”

“I saw her socks!”

The excitement at the table seemed to die instantly. Mai’s proclamation wasn’t exactly the grand reveal we had expected.

“Her… socks?” questioned Saki

“Her socks.” replied Mai, still looking very proud of herself.

To the other two, Mai probably sounded like an idiot. Actually, scratch that, Mai did sound like an idiot. But I knew her too well for that. She seemed to love giving us minimal information and letting us figure stuff out for ourselves.

“Her socks…” I muttered to myself, trying to figure out what the significance could be. “Wait… were they-”

It hit me all at once, why someone’s socks would matter. Mai’s proud smirk out into a grin as I got it. I didn’t even need to finish my sentence.

“I think you’ve got it, Sora, my dear.” She invited the three of us to lean in closer, before whispering just loud enough for us to hear, “she was wearing the socks from our school uniform.”

“Our school uniform?!” Saki said aloud, without the slightest hint of subtlety.

“Keep it down, will ya? I’m tryna keep this on the DL so the whole class doesn’t freak out.”

“Ah- my bad, sorry.” Despite being the de-facto leader of our group, Saki actually shrank back a little at Mai’s scolding.

“Anyway, I wasn’t able to narrow much else down about her. She looked pretty much average height & weight, her hair was long and black like Sora’s, and she didn’t seem to have any big identifying features. But finding out that she’s a student here really narrows down the pool a lot.” Mai put her hand on her chin as if deep in thought, but I was concerned at the implication of what she said.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Hold on, narrows down the pool? Mai, what are you talking about?”

“Hmm? Isn’t it obvious? We’re gonna hunt down a magical girl!”

Incredible. She just said something completely unhinged as if it was just common sense. I momentarily marvelled at the incomprehensible mind of my lunatic of a best friend.

“Mai, how exactly do you plan on ‘hunting’ magical girls? They show up at random and disappear in the blink of an eye. It’d be like trying to hunt birds with a fishing rod.”

“Au contraire, my dear Sora.” Amai’s response was accompanied by a beaming smile and a hurried scramble in her backpack. From within, she produced a map of Tokyo covered in threads in four different colours. It resembled the boards you’d see in detective dramas, though unlike those it was completely incomprehensible.

“…am I supposed to know what I’m looking at?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“If it was, would be I asking?”

Mai stuck her tongue out at me, then began tracing one of the lines with her finger.

“Using every bit of footage of magical girl activity I could find online, I charted every route that they appear from or fly off to and charted them on this map. Black is Flame Of Time, pink is Tranquil Arrow, yellow is All Seeing Eye, red is Illusory Spear and blue is Shining Cutlass.”

The data was, to vastly understate, meticulous. There were dozens of threads, each labelled with an exact starting point and bearing measured to the tenth of a degree. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was the work of a master navigator or cartographer. That being said…

“The directions seem to be completely random. There’s no point where they intersect. How are you supposed to find them with this?”

“You need to think further outside the box, my beloved Sora. For you see, if you wanted to keep your base of operations secret, what would be your first step?”

“Making sure I can’t be followed…” it clicked in my head as soon as I said it. I shouldn’t be looking for a place where the lines intersect. I should be looking for a place they seem to avoid. My eyes quickly scanned over the map again, looking for areas that seemed particularly devoid of activity.

One spot stood out.

“This area… in the south of Shibuya, not far from Meguro… that’s where you think their base of operations is?”

“Too right you are, my faithful deputy detective.” She puffed out her chest, clearly proud of her almost scary level of diligence. She both terrified and amazed me.

“Then it’s settled, right?” Saki cut in, now more excited than I had ever seen her. “The four of us are going there to check it out after school, right?”

Saki and Mai shook hands like they had just sealed a trillion yen business transaction, both beaming with smiles. Apparently I was the only one seeing the blatantly obvious flaw in this flaw.

“So just to confirm, you want to just casually roll up to the highly secretive base of operations of a group of superpowered individuals?”

“Yes.”

“In an unfamiliar part of one of the busiest wards in Tokyo?”

“Yes.”

“So that you can expose their carefully protected identities?”

“Isn’t it a great idea!”

“Mai, if there was half a brain in your head you’d be a danger to society.”

“So rude!”

Cruel though it may have been to say, I had my reasons to say it. There were so many unknowns that could make such a plan incredibly dangerous. We had no idea who these ‘magical girls’ really were, how their powers worked, or how they’d react to us trying to find out.

And Mai clearly knew it, because she didn’t rebut my point, instead choosing to sulk like a puppy that’s been denied treats.

“I mean, I’m all for it. Sure, it might be a little dangerous, but these are magical girls we’re talking about here! Ain’t it worth the risk?” Saki, however, had no such qualms.

“How would we even get there? It’s an hour’s walk from our train’s closest station.”

“So we get off the train and walk for an hour, duh.”

“Are you an idiot? We’d have to walk an hour there then an hour back. There’s no way we’d get home before curfew.”

“The last train leaves way into the night, just text your parents and tell ‘em we’ll be out late and it’ll all be fine. Don’t be such a worrywort, Sora.”

I wanted to retort, but my words got stuck in my throat at the mention of my parents. My family situation, or lack thereof, was clearly still a sore spot for me, even if Saki didn’t know it.

Seemingly taking my sudden silence as concession, Saki smirked smugly at her perceived victory. After a few moments, though, I managed to get my words back.

“I still think this is a really bad idea. Four teenage girls wandering the streets of Shibuya, potentially late into the evening? With no form of self defence and no direction other than a map covered in thread? There’s too many things that could go wrong.”

“But it’s magical girls Sora! Real life magical girls! We can’t pass up an opportunity like this!”

Realising that neither of us was convincing the other, Mai and I turned to our last member in unison.

Nao was the only one of the idiot trio with an ounce of common sense, so trusted her to understand just how asinine this whole idea was. Unfortunately…

“Um… I-I guess it would be okay…” she said, sneaking peeks at Saki’s expression as she spoke.

I knew this would happen. The one thing that could outweigh Nao’s common sense: her unwavering trust in Saki’s judgement.

After all, the two were practically joined at the hip, and between the outgoing athlete that never shuts up and the bespectacled nerd who barely speaks at all, it was obvious who was calling most of the shots.

“Looks like you’re outvoted 3-to-1, Sora. Better luck next time.”

Mai stuck her tongue out as she spoke, and for a split second I seriously considered going straight home and letting them just go without me.

That being said, I really was worried about the idea of three high school girls wandering the backstreets if Shibuya alone. At least if I was there, it’d be more of a threat to attackers due to my good physical strength.

“God dammit.” I sighed as I accepted defeat. “This better be worth the time and effort.”

“Yes! Sora, I love you!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’m still not happy about it.”

My agents were definitely gonna give me an earful when I got home. But it may have been worth it just to hear Mai’s appreciation.

And besides, maybe it’d do me some good to lay off the cynicism a little for once.