"I know you're excited, but do you have to express that excitement by constantly playing with my hair?"
"Yes."
I sighed as Mai continued messing about behind me. She had a tendency to play with my hair when she was bored, but now that she was filled with anticipation she was being even more erratic than usual.
Truth be told, I preferred when my hair was much shorter than this, but when you assume a new identity you don't exactly have the luxury of choosing your style.
"Man, when is she gonna show up? She can't be far, it's not like she would have left the school at any point." While Mai contented herself with sitting behind me and aimlessly messing with my hair, Saki took to pacing up and down on the rooftop. It was hard to tell who was more excited between the two.
"M-maybe she changed her mind? Or she got held up after class?" Unlike the other two, Sunao looked like a complete bundle of nerves. But then, that's nothing new for her. I wondered if this situation was gonna be too stressful for her.
As the rooftop fell into silence (save for the sound of Saki's impatient footsteps) another question came to my mind.
"Hey, do you guys not think this is super fishy?"
With the reaction I got from that question, you'd assume I had just admitted to assassinating the Prime Minister. Mai's hands stopped dead in their tracks, Saki stopped pacing on the spot and all three girls turned their heads to look directly at me.
"Why do you say that?" It was difficult to get a read on Mai's tone, but if nothing else I heard a hint of scepticism.
"Well, the magical girls have taken every precaution to hide their identities up to this point, right? As far as I'm aware, not a single soul knew who they were. Would people who are so protective of their secrets really invite four strangers to their hidden base just because we guessed one of their identities?" For a moment none of the three seemed to have an answer, but I could practically hear Mai's brain working overtime to think of something.
"Maybe it's just because we're her kouhai? Maybe she thinks that we respect her enough as a senpai to not blab?" After a moment of thinking, Amai offered that answer, though I could hear in her voice that she had little faith in it.
"Sure, if it was just her identity, maybe. But their base of operations too?"
"I mean, we did already find it," interjected Saki, "maybe she thinks there's no harm in showing us around since we already know where it is?"
"I would assume there's things they don't want people to know about inside too, though." I paused for a moment, wondering if I was just overthinking. "I dunno, maybe there's nothing to it, but something just doesn't sit ri-"
"Hey, sorry, I keep you girls waiting long?" my thought was cut off by the opening of the roof door and the voice of Aya Shiko cutting through my own. I didn't hear her ascending the stairs, so I wondered if she had heard what I was saying, but if she did it didn't show on her face.
What's more, she wasn't alone. Alongside her stood a short freckled girl I had never seen before. Unlike Shiko's unfriendly demeanour, the second girl wore a bright smile that was orders of magnitude more welcoming. Though, maybe it was just my nerves, but something about the smile felt fake to me.
"So, these the girls you told me about, Ayacchi?" the shorter girl asks, her voice much more bubbly and friendly than her gloomy companion.
"Them's the ones." replied Shiko, as blunt and mannerless as she had been earlier. The shorter girl then turned to us and addressed us in that same upbeat tone as before.
"Nice t'mee'cha, girls! Name's Kyoko Yokoshima. What's you guys' names?" While the disposition was friendly, I still felt some slight unease. I just couldn't put my finger on the reason.
"Name's Amai Sugi, I'm the brains of this operation" came the smug voice of my friend behind me.
"Saki Tachibana. Pleased t'meet" said the girl who stepped forward and offered Yokoshima her hand.
"S-sunao Kobun. It's nice to meet you" followed the meek voice of my most anxious friend.
"...Sora." I hesitated to give my name at all, but eventually settled for just giving my forename. While Yokoshima's smile didn't falter, I could swear I saw Shiko's eyes narrow slightly.
That girl sets off alarm bells in my mind.
"So then, with introductions done, would you girls mind letting me know how you went about finding our hideout? It should have been quite difficult, so I'm impressed that four of my kouhai managed to figure it out."
Without a second's hesitation, Mai launched into a lengthy explanation about every step we took toward finding the base, from her map outlining the blind spots in routes taken by the magical girls, to the flocks of birds that weirdly dodged that one area in the sky. The whole time, Yokoshima's expression didn't change once, but Shiko seemed to be in deep thought.
"...then we accidentally tripped your automated defences when Saki threw a stone at where we thought the building was. And that's about it!" Amai was returning Yokoshima's bright smile as she finished talking. Though, looking at the two, I saw a light in Mai's eyes that seemed utterly empty in Yokoshima's. Then again I'm probably just paranoid.
"They wouldn't have thrown that stone if you hadn't insisted on putting the base over the empty lot, Kyoko." Surprisingly it was Shiko, not Yokoshima who spoke first.
"We had no choice, Ayacchi. You know the vertical ownership laws they passed in 2029 means we can't fly the base over other people's property."
"It's invisible! They'll never know!"
"We already have vigilantism on our list of crimes, you wanna add property violations too?"
Shiko rolled her eyes, while Yokoshima turned her attention back to us.
"Well, since you girls spent so much time and effort figuring this all out, and since you promised us that you wouldn't tell anyone, how about we show you around? Give you a quick tour of the place?"
While the other three girls shared expressions of glee, I tensed up. This was exactly what I was worried about. It just feels… too easy? Something about this all just doesn't sit right with me.
Then again, I can't just let the girls wander in without me. I'm the most physically capable of the four of us, so if something does go down I can give my all to protect them. Not that there's much I can do against superpowers.
While I certainly continued to have my misgivings, I didn't voice them for fear of disappointing my friends.
And thus, we made our way to the empty lot.
***
"Woaaaah, this place is huge!" Amai made no attempt to hide her excitement at the admittedly incredible sight before our eyes. Shiko and Yokoshima had flown the four of us up to the invisible door of the hideout, and as soon we stepped through we could see everything that was previously hidden.
The building had to be at least four floors high, and each floor was significantly taller than what you'd see in the average Tokyo home. It's base covered pretty much as much ground (air?) as it could without crossing over into anyone else's property, which meant that each floor also had dozens of rooms.
Frankly, for a hideout for vigilantes to retreat to, it was a thousand times more grandiose than I had expected.
"We can't show you everything, some stuff is top secret, but there is one room in particular I want you guys to see. Make sure you keep up!" Yokoshima said playfully, as she ran off at a speed no non-superhuman could feasibly keep up with.
"Hey, no fair! Let's catch up to her!" Amai immediately ran after her without a care in the world, with Saki and Sunao following close behind. I jogged a little to not fall too far behind, and Shiko walked alongside me.
"Not gonna run off with your friends?" The question was an innocuous one, but once again her attitude was slightly off putting.
"Uh… been a bit of a long day. Don't really have the energy to run." As I was so used to at this point, I lied without a second thought. In reality, I was conserving my breath in case we had to run away.
It wasn't long before the two of us caught up to the other four, who were waiting at the top of the first flight of stairs for us.
"Come on, you slowpokes. Sora I can understand, but you have the same physical capabilities as me, Ayacchi." Yokoshima poked her tongue out as Shiko, who's only reply was to roll her eyes. "The place I wanna show you is just along this hall, our third left. You guys are gonna love this, especially if you're real magical girl fanatics."
My three companions happily plodded along behind Yokoshima, while I lagged back a bit. Shiko continued to keep pace with me, walking a couple steps behind. We were a couple doors away from the room Yokoshima was guiding us to when Sunao suddenly stopped and looked into an open door next to her.
"Is that…" she trailed off, and the rest of us gathered round to see what she was looking at. It appeared to be a changing room filled with clothes. And among those clothes:
"Hey, ain't that the Toukyouto high uniform?" Saki voiced what Sunao had failed to say earlier.
"Mmhm. It's not just our school, there are magical girls at Toukyouto too. If they're okay with it, I could introduce you to them later if you want."
"Really? Awesome!" Amai's childlike excitement at the possibility of meeting more of her heroes alleviated my anxiety for a moment, though it spiked once again as we continued down the hallway and I heard Shiko close the changing room door.
A few more steps down the hall and Yokoshima stopped to open a heavy-looking door on her left.
"This is it, follow me girls." She stepped in and held the door open as my three friends walked in behind her. Hesitantly, I followed behind, but immediately regretted my decision as I saw what was inside the room.
"Get the tall one first." It was Shiko's voice that resounded around the dingy room, followed by three movements that were too fast for me to follow.
First, Yokoshima slammed the door behind herself as soon as Shiko stepped in behind me. From the sound alone, I could tell it was too heavy for any of the four of us to open by hand.
While I was still processing that, I felt an arm wrap around my neck and a leg knock out my knees from behind. In the split second it took me to turn around to the door, Yokoshima has grappled my entire body and had me in a lock so tight I could barely move a muscle.
Finally, Shiko had darted past my three companions and grabbed an item off the large table at the back of the room.
A syringe.
"Good call on getting this one first, Ayacchi. She's even stronger than she looks." Yokoshima's tone kept it's prior upbeat nature, but it was now marred by a tinge of malice.
"What?! What's going on?! Why are you attacking our friend?!" after the initial shock of the situation wore off, Amai began shouting panicked questions at the two who lured us in here.
"Calm down, Sugichan. We're not gonna hurt you guys. In fact, we're gonna give you exactly what you want! We're gonna make you magical girls like us!" Yokoshima's response was so full of smugness that it made me want to wipe the smile off her face with my fists. Not that I had the range of motion to even try.
"Obviously you're not gonna be exactly like us, though," added Shiko as she moved closer to me. "We added a little extra something to the doses we're giving you. Just to make you a little more… open to suggestion, let's say."
Saki and Amai shared looks of confusion, but Sunao and I both understood what that meant immediately. They weren't turning us into superheroes. They were turning us into superpowered slaves.
I cursed myself for going along with this asinine idea, and for not trusting my gut. Now my stupidity is gonna get me and the people I love in a situation we can't escape from.
As Shiko stuck the needle into my arm, all I could pray for was that I'd be able to protect the girls even after we were stripped of our free will.
"So, it's the power to protect those you care about that you seek? Very well. I can grant that to you."
As the contents of the syringe entered my body, a voice resounded in my head. One that defied description.
And in that instant, a pain unlike any I had ever felt enveloped my body.
I wondered if this was what death felt like.
And yet, I continued to draw breath.