* (1 month later)
"Alright, this will be your first mission. This point over here, assassinate these Sactuarian researchers and bring back some of their work. Anymore than that would be a suicide mission, fulfill your mission and swiftly head back. Maybe a promotion would be headed your way if you do it successfully. " (walk)
Her light grey hair stood out under the light, round thick glasses concealed her eyes as her small nose peaked out from under. The more common of the grey hairs was leaning to a dark grey or a normal grey, yet hers was closer in tone to white. There was no explicable explanation, it was just the consensus. Colour tone, an objective thing to judge gave everyone a small sense that her hair was closer to white for some reason.
Disregarding her hair, the next thing that most stood out was her pitch black military uniform. Miniature yellow highlights decorated her cuffs and the edge of the holes where buttons go through, which were present on her collar, front chest pockets, back pockets and cuffs. It was a shade of dark yellow that didn't take much attention from the overall drab attire, yet it still had some presence in accentuating her figure. Her words were cold, emotionless like a robot, but her face undeniably showed emotion. They looked condescending, as if she was forced to step in some worms.
After briefing us of our mission, her figure vanished into thin air. Most of us felt our Jaws collapse onto the ground. It was inexplicable. Well, maybe not, but having something you don't understand happen right in front of you for the first time is fully nerve-wracking. Kanou's instant leap is one thing, but completely vanishing and leaving not a single trace of magic is another. Kanou's jumps would leave craters on the ground and some remnant of magical particles, Commander Walk's left nothing.
In any case, did they not fear that we would betray them and escape? If they had some grip on us, perhaps they withheld that one purpose and are waiting to use us as examples. There were around a hundred of us in that white room, filling up to 5 stations completely. Naturally they would have around 10 of their own soldiers to keep watch, so perhaps up to 10 stations held those of us who defected from the Sanctuary.
Looking at all the others, all of them had perplexed looks as if taking in that information for the first time. Just learning that we have missions that involve killing. We were abducted to be border patrol guards, maybe they didn't expect much action on the second layer.
My body is incredibly weak, if I were to get the mission done I'll have to count on them.
"Listen up, this is our first mission! We've been selected personally by Commander Walk! As you've seen just now, she possesses incredible skill in magic, she is directly under general Frena! It means that we have been chosen by the general herself to see this mission through to the end!
You've been ordered to prepare before this meeting with Commander Walk, right? There's no time to stand around, the faster we finish this, the faster we can return. That is all. "
A calm and loud voice should drown out their thoughts. Hopefully that eased up their feelings a little. Disorganised feelings would be bad during a mission. We also haven't receive a time limit, conversely they are testing how long we're going to take. It won't be good at all to rush our very first mission.
I can't tell what General Frena had planned or how she's going to chain our loyalty to her, but I'll take advantage of it. Walk and Frena are too powerful to fight at the current moment, my anti-magic injuries have healed surprisingly little since Frena squashed me under tremendous amounts of pressure. I blacked out for a couple days. With no doctor around, I can only guess how long my recovery takes.
Even with all these issues, I need to push forward and find a way. At present, she could even kill Kanou if Kanou was off guard. S-grade magical girls... Monsters the lot of them. I'll find a way that doesn't need strength, I can't be like that monster that abducted us. From what I could tell, these S-grades were awakened like that or close to that. They started off high and got higher. I had thought I was fairly powerful when I first awakened, but I was very wrong.
The first time I felt power in my life, after the incessant bullying in middle school and becoming a loser neet for a year. My power, it was given a C-grade. It was reminiscent of a school grade. 'Just passed'. Compared to the rest, it was no power at all. It was average then, below average now. Complaining about the curse will do nothing. It's barely a curse, just the after effects and remnants of a dead person.
I should stop brooding, the only way left now is forward.
"..... Ah...". It seemed that while I was reminiscing about everything else, the rest of them has been standing there staring. I felt a sliver of warmth on my cheeks, the awkwardness was palpable, at least for me. Had they been staring on attention since I gave that speech to distract them? They're supposed to be distracted by my words so they could move smoothly on their own, why were they waiting for me...
"Ehem! Let's go."
Saying so, I lifted a decent sized camping bag on my back. It held some food but was mostly tools for the mission. It was an assassination after all, we need specialised infiltration tools for that. The existence of magic defences is quite annoying, it can't be detected normally. A unique tracker has to be used for that. Us magical girls can usually sense them normally from the concentration of magical particles circulating around, but such a vague sense is easy to conceal from...
The trip was a few kilometres, roughly a thousand kilometres to a small village and another thousand to a larger Sactuarian settlement. Thankfully other factions like the Illnoia administration don't refer to them as 'subjects of the Eye God', which was truly a mouthful. They were called Sanctuarians instead, we were once one of them. With my own speed, it would take around a km per leap. Each leap last a couple seconds since I have to land on the group and jump for the next leap.
I could go faster, but wasting energy on that is foolish. After an hour and some minutes, the town came into view. Though it was not the same town that I had lived in, a sense of nostalgia washed over me. The architecture was similar, rather than stone bricks the buildings had been formed out of magically reinforced wood. They're much better than normal wooden materials, but they still fall short of modern concrete. Even so, it reserved a special place from 3 months ago. Before I became a magical girl.
Unfortunately, I had not grown in power at all since then. Normally my stats would be quite a bit higher due to the training, however as mentioned before, my transformation has been weakened.
"Did you set up all the teleport action crystals as told? Sorry for troubling."
"Mhmmm. No problem, an evacuation route could be a matter of life and death. I'll be troubling you instead, captain." (Vila)
"Eh?! Captain?"
"Yeah, no one wanted to do it but you stepped up at the last second so now the job is yours." (Vila)
"..."
She had pure white hair that was short and cut to a clean slope on the back like a bob cut. It felt like she was wearing an extra cap under her desert cap that we all wore, as her hair bounced around under her cap. The desert cap itself was a plain beige and made from left over cloth. Surprisingly, there was still a supply of dye that we could request from the higher ups. Though they may have some unseen grip hold that prevents us from rebelling, it would be pointless if they lost all their soldiers at once, so some flexibility and accommodation must have been necessary.
It was truly a push and pull relationship. Sometimes I can't tell if the situation was carefree like that mini conflict with the rising Knight order or if it's actually serious like the abduction by general Frena. Even if it had been a month, I wouldn't let go of this grudge so easily. Just the thought of her riles my body up. To describe it, there is an urge to fight her present.
Anyway, just like Commander Walk, Vila had a stoic face that fit their small stature. If I hadn't been transformed, would I have recognised them as loli? Well, I'm shorter than before so I can't tell. The army uniform was the usual camo texture, though it had been altered into thin blouses and skirts so it doesn't get too hot or heavy. If we had to fight in a cold climate, we would have to leave that issue for another time.
Taking out a device, it was a sort of compass that led to the nearest labyrinth, since those labyrinths were the largest source of magical particles. The device was designed to be extremely sensitive in detecting fluctuations, but the labyrinths may have some sort of anti-detection magic to cover their locations. Everyone had a similar device and a communication tool. It was bad to stay transformed while searching for the enemy's base, as they may have a similar detection tool to reveal our presence.
Well, except for me anyway. Everyone else could safely untransform, while my injuries would get worser and may become fatal. It's annoying I guess, but I could still suppressed my aura somewhat. It was something similar to holding your breath, unlike everyone else I had ample time to train this expect. Since everyone else didn't need to worry about something like this, I was the only one that could manage this degree of control.
While one could theoretically control magical particles while untransformed, the transformation is the true culprit that allows one to better regulate their own magical particles. A magical girl simply activates their transformation and leaves everything to it. But that regulation only extends to their skills, their aura or in other words the magical particles that they release subconsciously is another magnitude in difficulty to control. It felt uncomfortable and was tedious to hold on, but I could manage this.
Under than suppressing my aura, if I ease up on the augmentations it should be much better. Now my physical abilities were the same as any of the rest, they were average for girls our age. By not expending magical particles on fueling our superhuman abilities, the magical particles present in my body should be closer to air now than a magical girl.
Going into groups of 2, we split off into different directions outside of that town. It may take days, and that was what the food was for. Camping out. Few hour pass by and the sun seemed to be setting, there was no sign of the labyrinth. Though the tool may cover a mhch larger area, even our magical girl senses could detect the labyrinth in a small moment of luck and sensitivity. It was practically like how sniffer dogs could find people.
I had been walking with Myuu for a few hours, along the way we talked about various things and the most important of all was food. Missing the old meat dishes in the past, we continued to search for the labyrinth until we met a girl.
She had long vibrant red hair that seemed to glow under the setting sun, it complemented the gold skies as they fluttered in the wind of this empty land. Similar to my own magical girl combat dress, there was a small crystal below her neck and collar, right in the middle of her chest, it was dark red as her own figure stood in front of the sun.
Small plate like armour jutted over her hips, knees and elbows, while a fiery red dress wrapped neatly around her skin. Thick red bracelets wrapped around her wrist as frills decorated the edge of the bottom of her dress. Her dress was similar to mine, though it was more symmetrical and split from the middle onto the left and right like cloaks hanging from her hips. They pointed 45 degrees to the ground, opening up the middle for ease of movement.
It seemed that there were more metallic armour to her dress than mine, they beautifully blended in with their red hue as her lower leg and forearm greaves, followed by red cloth with thin black highlights that split above and below her arm. They ran down her torso from her back at a diagonal until they reached a quarter of the way through, then they turn back up like 2 letter Vs below her chest that lead to the centre, under the crystal. Above her chest, her dress twisted around her neck into a small piece of cloth that looks comfortable, leaving her collar bones and back exposed.
In her hand she held an ominous long sword that glowed just as brightly as the sun in a shiny yellow, just standing here allowed me to feel the heat emanating from it. I'm sure if I tried to use my magical girl senses, they would be overwhelmed by the amount of magical particles present, it was not as much as general Frena but still too much for me to deal with at the moment.
"What are you doing here?" (?)
Even her iris was a hue of shiny red, though a small purple outline of a hollow plus sign(+) stood in contrast above them. They looked quizzically, as if staring into my soul.