"How goes the information gathering?"
"Arghhhhhhhhh"
"That bad, huh?"
It had been the better part of a week since our successful infiltration and rescue mission, and Mai's efforts to uncover the secrets of Akuyaku industries seemed to be hitting its fair share of roadblocks.
"Shell company after shell company, false identity after false identity, what the hell is with this company?"
"Aren't they just a pharma corporation? Why are they operating shell companies?"
"On the surface, you're right, but the more I look, the deeper things seem to go. Naochan asked around with her contacts, but no one in the industry seems to really know anything about Akuyaku. They seemed to pop up out of nowhere, but within months they had an enormous market share. Quite frankly, there's no way their growth is organic. There's something deeper at play here."
I stood up from my seat and sat back down at Mai's side, where she was frustratedly navigating through her dozens of TOR browser tabs. She had kicked up a storm on 1chan by spreading rumours about Akuyaku, and even though most laughed it off and called her words that I won't repeat, a few other users corroborated her concerns that the company looked shady as hell, and before long the board had multiple threads sharing both publicly available and illegally sourced private information.
The army of nerds online worked fast, but their digging only seemed to raise more and more questions.
>The CEO, Akira Kakamei, does not exist. There is no record of any such person anywhere other than as the CEO of this corporation
>Akuyaku ind. run by lizard people confirmed
>Look at that name and tell me it's not an obvious alias
>This anon has too much time on his hands
>Smells like fraud, bet it's the Chinese
There were a multitude of conversations like this happening, many of them sharing links and compiling evidence. The further people looked into it, the more clear it was that Akuyaku had covered their asses every step of the way.
"I'm documenting and analysing everything I can, but there's so much information and most of it is useless. For every one useful strand I find there's a thousand and one red herrings."
"Any leads yet on their relation to magical girls?"
"No one bought that part, I'm afraid. Even when I said I was the OP that started the discussion, everyone just called me 'thread hijacker' and 'idiot conspiracy theorist,' as well as some other choice words that my parents definitely would not be okay with me saying in this house."
That remark reminded me to keep my voice down. Mai's parents had been kind enough to let me stay over for a while on the condition that I continue paying for my own food and the like. Normally I wouldn't have dared impose on her family like this, but we decided that having at least two of us together at all times would decrease our risk of being attacked and killed or taken hostage in our homes. Since all of us staying at Saki's was far from a permanent solution, we decided that Mai and I would stay at her place instead. Hana and her girls were still legally considered missing, but Hana lived alone anyway so they were all holed up at her place.
"I'm really not sure I feel right putting them in danger like this."
"I don't like it either, but it's far and away better than both of us staying in your dorm. That could put dozens of students and staff in harm's way."
"I know you're right, but still, it feels wrong that we're endangering their lives and they don't even know it." Mai noticeably tensed up as I said this. No one outside of the four of us and Hana's team knew what we were up to.
"It's not like we can just tell them, 'hey, we have superpowers now and we're being hunted by fraud superheroes and maybe one of the biggest and shadiest companies in the whole eastern hemisphere.' I feel awful keeping secrets from them, but we don't exactly have a choice."
"I know, I know. But god, this sucks. It was bad enough when it was just the four of us in danger, but the longer this goes on, the more people are at risk. Do you think we're making a mistake? Trying to fight back, I mean? If we swore to stop getting involved and keep this to ourselves, they might have just let us live our lives."
It was an issue that had weighed on my mind heavily. The day of my awakening was just the result of four girls who got too curious for their own good, but since then we've been actively antagonising the magical girls. I didn't doubt for a second that we were making a positive difference by saving people from their enslavement, but by marking ourselves a big target we were also putting other people at risk, day in and day out.
No matter how hard we chewed, we had no idea just how much we had bitten off.
"...'The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.'" Mai said, after a moment of silent thinking.
"That quote… the Divine Comedy? Dante's Inferno?"
"It's never actually said in the Comedy, but yes, that's what it's normally attributed to. I think you're right. If we had desperately wanted it, if we had begged and pleaded on our hands and knees, they might have let us live our lives normally. But… that decision could never sit right with me. Knowing that there are people who are suffering, dying even, and that we passed up an opportunity to oppose that? Can you really say you'd have been able to live with yourself?"
"...no, I doubt it. I think it'd eat away at me for the rest of my life."
"I feel the same way. When I think about the fact that I'm putting my friends and family in danger, my resolve does waver slightly. But when I realise that giving up would mean abandoning all those girls to a lifetime of servitude and brainwashing… that's something I could never overlook. Even if it puts me and everyone I love in harm's way, I have to take direct action. To do everything I can to right that wrong."
She was still looking at her laptop screen, but there was a conviction in her eyes that wasn't there before. If there was one thing stronger than Mai's deductive reasoning skills, it was her sense of justice. For as long as I'd known her, she had been the most fiercely compassionate person I had ever met, and that had only grown since this magical girl business began.
She was a hero at heart. And she'd finally found a fight to dedicate herself to. In a way, I envied that.
"Speaking of taking direct action," she said, turning her head to me, "you and Saki have your first mission tonight, right?"
"Yeah. We're meeting at 9pm so we can be certain the building will be mostly empty when we get there." After several days of researching the company's facilities, we had narrowed down our options and picked a handful of large buildings to target for our espionage missions. We were gonna hit the closest one tonight.
"You better come back okay, or I won't forgive you."
"I will, don't you worry. Having you mad at me would be a fate worse than death."
"Damn right. You better remember that." She put her head on my shoulder, and I leaned my head on hers in return. Mai was always physically affectionate, to the point of disregarding people's boundaries, but just a few days of living with her had already gotten me used to it. Something about it felt right.
"Well, since you've still got some hours to kill, wanna help me search through this mountain of crap to try and find some leads?"
"Is there any way I can actually help?"
"Keep me company?"
"That, I can do." I was neither internet-literate enough nor smart enough to keep up with the insane speed at which Mai sorted through information. But if I could at least put her mind at ease by being here, that was good eno-
"Wait a minute… go back to that last thread."
"Hmm? This one?"
I spotted something that made my stomach drop. Something I thought I would never see again.
>List of companies that popped up out of nowhere like AY and disappeared
>All in STEM fields
>All with shady owners
>All vanished just before AY got huge
>Kyoto Engineering
>Fukushima Fusion
>Sendai Dynamics
>Inzen Robotics
"Inzen Robotics…"
"You know something about them, Sora? I tried looking into them, but they seemed to appear out of nowhere back in the early '20s and disappear just as suddenly."
Did I know something about them? I could only say I knew too much. That company. That fucking company. Those evil bastards.
"Mai. I think it's time I told you about my past."