Not long after our impromptu team meeting, Mai and I headed back to my place, but I found myself unable to sleep. A mix of anger and frustration at my own failure to predict this kept me awake no matter how hard I tried to clear my mind.
It was around 1am when I found myself checking Mai’s spynet to kill time since sleep was clearly not an option.
I didn’t expect to find anything. After all, even if Flame were still on Earth, there would be no reason from them to be wandering the streets of Tokyo in the middle of the night.
To my surprise, however, one of the surveillance cams came back with a positive ID.
“It can’t be… why now?” I didn’t believe my eyes at first, but after closer inspection there was no doubt whatsoever that there was no false ID. This was real.
I looked over at Mai and saw her fast asleep in the bed I had just left. Her peaceful sleeping face made my heart momentarily flutter, but I was quickly reminded of the situation.
I found the location of the camera, changed into clothes suitable for the dead of night in winter, and crept out of the house. With my magically enhanced physical abilities, it took less than a minute for me to find my way to the location.
Noticing that I was in the spot seen on the footage, I stopped to look around, but saw no one. Just as I was beginning to wonder if she had left the area, however, the midnight silence was broken by a familiar voice.
“I had a feeling you’d find me if I came back, Shin.”
“Is that why you’re wearing my face again, Kagami?”
I turned around and, as if she had appeared from thin air, Kagami stood five feet in front of me, snow falling on the visage that mirrored my own.
“I assume you already saw the message the old man left for you?”
“The one that effectively declared an active war against humanity? Yeah, I got it.”
“Then you also know there’s no hope for the human race, right?” She broke eye contact and looked up to watch the snow fall, a bitter melancholy in her voice. “I know firsthand how powerful Baal Zebul’s army is. You guys struggled with the old man when he was an incomplete demon who barely had a grasp on magic. You’d have better luck trying to win the lottery a thousand times over than fighting them.”
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“We were weaker then.”
“You’re weak now.”
“We can still fight back.”
“You’ll lose.”
“We can try.”
“You will die, Shin.”
She looked me dead in the eyes, her expression halfway between frustration at my stubbornness and some level of genuine sympathy. I wasn’t buying it.
“It’s easy for you to say. Someone who was so quick to throw aside love and join Hell could never understand. There is no surrender for us. No compromise we could make. There’s too much we need to protect for us to lay down and let it happen. That’s something you wouldn’t know a damn thing about, Kagami.”
“You think I wanted this to happen, you stupid bastard? You think I want to lose the ability to love my friends? You're the one who doesn't know a damn thing, Shin. You may think you’re the only ones with something to protect, but you’re not. I have people I care about too, just as much as you.”
“Then fight with us! Stand on the side of humanity and fight for that love that you want to protect! Don’t help our enemy take it away from us.”
“You just don’t get it, do you? There is no winning this war. Fighting hell would not save the bonds I have with my friends. It would just get me and all of them killed. You think I don’t want to protect the ones I love? You’re wrong. This is how I protect them. All you’re doing is leading that girl you love so much to an early grave.”
I had to consciously restrain myself from walking up and punching her in the face. I wasn’t sure if I was more angry at her words or her cowardice. All I knew for sure was that I was angry.
After a deafening moment of silence, I composed myself enough to talk.
“A month ago, when me and my friends took down the director, you told me that you and I are mirror images. What did you mean by that?” It was a question that had bugged me all this time, and I felt like the opportunity might slip away for good if I didn’t ask it now. Unfortunately, her answer was less than enlightening
“That’s something you’ll have to figure out for yourself one of these days, Shin. But I can tell you one thing for certain: we may be mirrored, but we are not identical. Someone like you, still full of hope and naïveté, belongs here on Earth. But me? There’s nowhere I could belong but hell. Maybe when you realise how futile this all is, you’ll join me there. I’ll be waiting.”
“Dammit, Kagami, wai-“ I called out to her as she turned away from me, but before I could finish the sentence she disappeared entirely, likely transforming her body into something I couldn’t see in the darkness of the winter night. “Futile…”
I pondered her words for what felt like a long while, my mind occupied entirely by the hopelessness she spoke with. It wasn’t until another familiar voice interrupted me that I realised how lost in my thoughts I had gotten.
“If you’re gonna sneak out at night to meet other girls, couldn’t you at least make it one that hasn’t tried to kill us before?”
“Mai…” The girl that I had thought was sleeping peacefully in my room stood some ten metres behind me, a look of disapproval on her face.
“Let’s sit down somewhere. I think we need to talk.”