"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, if they were 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 Thread, red is Illusory Spear and blue is Cutlass of Beauty."
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 seems 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 terrifying level of diligence.
"I see I see… so the four of us are headed there tonight, right?" Saki's face brightened up at the prospect, her eyes seemingly taken by the delusion imagined sight of her meeting the heroes she so adamantly adored. I, however, was not as on board.
"So let me get this straight… you want to go to an unfamiliar part of one of the busiest wards in Tokyo to track down a secret building that may or may not be filled with superpowered individuals who'll stop at nothing to protect their identities?"
"Isn't it a great plan?"
"Mai, if there was half a brain in that head you'd be a danger to society."
"So rude!"
Sulking though she may have been, Amai clearly had no way to refute my concerns. Then again, she also seemed to have no desire to actually address them.
"Well I'm all for it! As soon as school lets out, let's hop on the train to Shibuya and get hunting!" Picking up the momentum that Mai had lost, Saki seemed completely resolute with her decision to follow the plan.
"And how exactly are we planning to get there? Our train stops almost an hours walk away."
"So we'll just walk for an hour!"
"Are you a complete imbecile? We'd also have to walk an entire hour back, there's no way we'd be home before curfew."
"The last train leaves way into the night, we'll just text our parents that we'll be out late and it'll all be fine. Don't be such a worrywort, Sora."
I bit my tongue on my reply. These three aren't exactly aware of my family situation, or lack thereof, so I wouldn't be able to object to that proposal without revealing some things I'm not exactly ready to talk about.
I toss the idea up in my head. The rules were strictly enforced my first few weeks here, but they've slackened off a little over time. Spending a day out a little later than normal shouldn't cause too many problems, so long as I let them know ahead of time. Still…
"This still seems like a really bad idea to me. Four teenage girls wandering the unfamiliar streets of Shibuya, with no form of self defence and no direction other than a map covered in threads? There's so many ways this could go wrong."
"But isn't it worth the risk anyway? It's magical girls! Real life magical girls! If we're right, and this is where they're based, we might get to be the first people to properly meet them!" said Amai, perking back up from her sulky mood.
"If they really do go to our school, we might even be able to hang out with them at lunch and stuff! Wouldn't that be cool!" Saki immediately backed Amai up. Practically in unison, our three heads turned to the fourth member of our party, who hadn't said a word so far.
Sunao is the only one but me with any semblance of common sense, so she'll probably see why this plan is stupid and dangerous. However…
"Umm… if Saki says it's fine… then I guess we should be okay?"
Dammit, I knew it. The one thing more powerful than Sunao's anxiety: her faith in Saki's judgement. After all, the two are practically inseparable, and it's never Sunao calling the shots.
"Looks like it's 3-to1! Sorry, Sora, looks like you're outvoted. Better luck next time!" Amai once again stuck her tongue out at me, and for a minute I seriously considered going home without them and letting them wander the streets alone.
But… letting three vulnerable girls walk around alone in Shibuya scares me a little. They'd probably be fine, but on the off-chance something happened, I'd never be able to forgive myself.
If I'm there, and we do get attacked, I could at least use that to make our chances better.
God dammit…
"This better be worth my time."
"Of course it will be!"
Amai's assertion doesn't exactly make me feel better, but… maybe I can turn off the cynicism, just this once.