***(Kaede)
It's been a couple of weeks since they began staking out. Fortunately, it had been a peaceful situation for the sanctuary. Though it was necessary to have sent reinforcements to the front, the citizens enjoyed unprecedented amounts of peace.
On the task at hand, it seems that there were fixed days and random days of when Willen 'leaves' for her missions. Though it had only been 2 full weeks since they began observing her patterns, if it completely changed up on the third week then they would have to reevaluate their findings.
As such, they found it necessary to conduct a preliminary search on her destination. 1000 metres in the air. Kaede carries the 3 of them with her wind and camouflages them by bending the light around them. Barius could use her first skill to control water and Neli could use hers to control gravity, adding in some assistance to the camouflage and levitation. They observed her from 1000 metres away. Strangely enough, they lost her the moment she entered the ruins.
That was enough information for them. They weren't exactly perfect at reconnaissance, if Willen simple stared at the sky for a bit longer, then she would have noticed a particular spot where light gathered unnaturally. As if someone was flashing a laser pointer at your eye, due to Willen's high speed movements, they naturally needed to follow her at the same altitude, messing up their own crude camouflage technique.
"Should we enter now, or go in in secret?" (Neli)
"... Let's be prudent and retreat it for today." (Barius)
Barius disagreed, her decision was sound when it came to recognising our own inadequacies. Her composed expression gave off the impression that she had already set her eyes on the end goal, that victory was potentially within her palms and simply waiting for that time to come.
Neli on the other hand was raring to rush in, while it did make sense to strike while the iron is hot, Willen was more familiar with this area than we were. In this case, Kaede would agree with Barius more as the odds of success were too low if they rushed in now. It was more probable that they would only alert Willen to their presence, causing Willen to increase her vigilance. Kaede thought through it further with some help.
'Have you used your passive? It should be able to cover the entirety of central now with my assistance, but you should proceed with caution. If she tracks your scan...' (Grail)
A concerned voice gave her the final piece of light, shining onto the last puzzle piece. It was obvious to have her radar on at all times, so that Kaede could keep her guard up all the time. Even if her friends decide to backstab her, she would notice and be able to react. But she had never used it to seek underground or above cloud bases. As bases, hidden ones are usually fixed in place to tighten the security into that of a fortress' or to enhance their camouflage for maximum secrecy.
"... Of course... Willen could be hiding something here with magic... But I cannot detect anything underground or above ground with my passive. She either has elaborate and refined camouflage magic... Or whatever she's here for is hiding in plain sight." (Kaede)
She used her passive. Judging from their surface interactions and environment alone, it didn't seem like Willen could afford or build anything as high tech as a magic scanner repeller or reverse tracker.
" In that case, haven't we already lost her? I propose that we stay in this spot and wait until she arrives here again. By then, we could track her magic even if we lose her. Kaori, you can single down her mana signature can't you? The trails of it that she leaves, I mean. " (Neli)
" Y-yeah, the only concern I have about that is... " (Kaede)
" She'll notice our tracks if we stay here... Anyone can track our mana signature if we're standing present right next to them... Not to mention the physical tracks, such as foot prints and stuff... " (Barius)
Kaede bit her lip by accident and stuttered before them, caught surprised by Neli being more outspoken than usual. It wasn't a bad thing, she simply didn't expect her to be this ahead. Kaede felt like she had a more reserved image of Neli as Barius's humble assistant. Dismissing it, she decides to focus on the issue at hand, how they will be staying and monitoring this area until Willen comes back.
"... Wait, can't you find Willen normally with your passive?" (Barius)
"No... I've already tried, but that's something that's... Absorbing the signal.
My passive uses magical particles to collect information about the environment, and then that environmental information to collect more information further ahead. In other words, there's a massive blind spot where the information isn't coming back to me. " (Kaede)
Originally it was only intended to read the gradients of existing matter in the vicinity, but since she was able to 'stretch' this 'gradient' of magic as far as possible, its range would increase as much as her magic quantity increases. The amount of information that comes back then does not teleport back or bounce back like sonar signals do, instead she intuitively senses the information the moment the 'gradient' makes contact with the end of its range.
This meant that she 'feels' the information the moment her radar reaches the end of its range and stops moving... So if someone could bypass that, perhaps instead of stopping her magic and preventing it from going back to its user, they were actually allowed the radar signal to travel away further indefinitely...? She couldn't make sense of it, the most concrete action they could do now was to physically follow Willen to their destination. But who knew when Willen would go back to such an important place?
"We can determine if she was going into the ruins based on the direction of when she heads out of the headquarters. Let's go back and search another day. If we stay here any further, it'll only alert her." (Kaede)
"Alright." (Barius)
Neli gives a silent nod, showing that the gravity of the situation had settled in. It was time to move away from that area, lest they ruin their 2 weeks worth of efforts. It was fortunate, one of the days when Willen would out each week was only 2 days from now. They could take today and tomorrow off as a break from their activities to rest.
"... Let's go grab a drink. Are you two coming? We'll be having a short break from now until tomorrow evening." (Kaede)
"... I'm feeling a little rusty, mind if we spar right after the drink?" (Barius)
"Sure." (Kaede)
She wasn't opposed to a little exercise as she was craving for a sweet drink, perhaps a milkshake. It was also because if a little sparring could get Barius to join her, that would be nice. She wondered if Neli would join in too.
"Ah.... I'm coming as well, if you don't mind." (Neli)
Her shy demeanour was refreshing, Kaede hoped that she wasn't pressured into joining. During a break, it was best to spend it with some friends. Anyway, sugar had been available since quite a few months ago, that it had now spread throughout the shops of central and are spreading in the outer cities of the Sanctuary.
Enjoyment of sweets was never actually lost, humans always have a craving for sweetness, but if they didn't have sugar they turned to substitutes such as preserved fruits and other dry sweet treats. They didn't have the mass produced industrial sugar used in modern foods then, but they did have traditional desert that didn't use sugar in their ingredients. Somehow, humanity always found a way, after all... Something needed to distract them from the significant losses that humanity took.
They trudged out of the ruins that were riddled with broken walls and scattered debris, and back into town, making their way between the deep density of the forging streets and the residential buildings in between. This time, Kaede had her eye on aa particular shop that wasn't thriving on the food street. It was in a random area full of resident buildings instead, it was a humble small shop set up right outside the owner's home.
Compact and tiny, yet it wasn't lacking assortment as it drew in all sorts of crowds. It was still early morning as that was when Willen headed out, reaching nowhere near noon. Their fast walking speed was also a contributing factor to this. The shop had just opened, it was a simple set up involving a few dispenser machines, a small counter and a cashier. The cups were piled over at the side, next to the machines. The total size of the shop was practically a single large van.
The owners were surprised that there were this many customers early in the morning, aside from the 3 there were a few others who quickly formed a short queue of 6. People were extremely busy in the mornings, choosing to go to work first over other things they could do. The shop was not located at a particularly good area where people frequent for their commutes either. The shop saw the most traffic during the afternoon followed by the evening.
Seeing their hair colours under the gentle shade of the dark blue clouds in the sky, the owner understood that they were most likely magical girls. It was a father son duo, one middle aged and one young adult man. The older one prayed inside his heart that the magical girls in front of him were amicable, that no trouble would be caused for his shop. The son on the other hand was fascinated by what layed in his sight.
They were exceedingly beautiful with hair like snow and silver that caused him to subconsciously hold his breath. Kaede had some bangs in front of her forehead that lined her face as it went to the right. The left part of her soft light grey hair was swept up under a large bang that covered her ear. Behind that and over her head were strands of hair pulled to the back and twisted into a single braid, that was usually covered by her long hair.
Barius on the other hand had a slightly different style, the bangs in the front were short, and surrounding the centre bangs was 2 thin strands that curved inwards and went lower than those bangs. Her hair curved outward from the front, while there were sidebangs that covered her ears and the side contours of her face.
Lastly, Neli had cactus greenhair that was swept to her left side and elegantly tied into a knot. The right half of her front bangs barely float above her right eye, with a few strands that prevented it from becoming flat and curved downwards. She had changed to a bright aqua blue hoodie that had black and white patterns at the side and a forest motif on her back as if it was an existing branded clothing.
Under it was some shorts that revealed her long dainty legs, which might seem appealing to the average person. But for other magical girls, a lack of armour meant that she was brandishing it as a weapon of mass destruction, not to mention that her 2 friends understood the destructive capabilities of her gravity magic.
She had changed her clothing before they even noticed, as if it was a cue for them. A layer of bright light wrapped around the other 2's combat dresses before the light shatters, revealing their skin and new forms. Barius had a cardigan on with a smooth fabric blouse under a belt and high skirt, her look was polished as if she belonged to high society.
Kaede's attire was much more casual with a simple tube top and jacket that she wore in a way that revealed her shoulders and only covered her arms with its sleeves. She wore a medium length skirt to match and some simple shoes that looked durable and protected her feet while being comfortable. Her white socks were peaking out of it, but weren't particularly long as well, only reaching up to the achilles tendon.
One could see that lewd thoughts were flowing through the young man's head as he was covering his eyes while his father knocked the back of his head. The mood had been lifted up strangely enough after that rare display. Also, they couldn't just create any outfit they want. These were the outfits that they were wearing before they transformed, in case some enemy had the ability to disable transformations or if they wanted to take a break similarly to the present circumstances.
Understandably, Kaede and Neli were shocked at what Barius's wardrobe was able to offer.
"W-w-where did you get such an outfit? T-that's not a new ability your combat dress has... Is it?" (Kaede)
"... Was your salary that much higher than mine? I thought they paid all magical girls low seeing that they don't need food and water... " (Neli)
"... It's a trade secret~" (Barius)
She holds a single finger up to her lips, doing the hush sign while giving off a single wink. It was a drastic move that we've never seen before, they understood that she was trying to divert their attention. But this was too much thinking for people who are on their break. So they faced away silently and continued queueing.