Yuuri Ruka was at work when the first sign of something being wrong dropped, when he first got the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. The several different news stations which played in the grocery store included one American station, since Shibuya was such a common tourist location. The station was obviously in English, which Yuuri wasn't about to comprehend when he wasn't transformed, but there were Japanese captions added in at a delayed rate.
He tended to read those captions when work was slow, and work was always slow on weekdays, with his midday shifts. Except for people who wandered in to grab prepared foods for lunch, nobody was doing their grocery shopping at the time of day when everyone with an office job was at work, and kids who could be sent on errands or shopped for themselves were at school. What he saw today on that news station, however, was shockingly relevant.
Usually, the American station meant nothing to him. All his friends were right here in Japan, so even hearing about bad things happening overseas didn't tend to have an impact on him. This one did.
"We have today discovered that the ex-child star Clarence 'Tyler' Hale, better known these days as confirmed magical boy 'Pretty Fighter Ribbon Stripe' has disappeared. His grandmother is insisting that the disappearance is strange, as he is usually upfront with her when he leaves to perform magical activities. We recommend that any in the Hollywood area exercise special caution over the next few days. Even if this known magical boy hasn't decided to go on a crime spree and has indeed gone missing in a strange manner, that strange manner may also endanger humans."
Yuuri was confused by that broadcast, but it made him worry. Stripe, he knew, was Blade's highest ranking magica. Not at all the type to get killed by Lionhardt, or to be caught off-guard enough to vanish without a trace in the first place. That wasn't normal. Nothing about magica was normal, of course, but this was unusual even in that context.
With the day crawling by at such a slow, awful pace, Yuuri unfortunately had plenty of time to stew on this information. It was even more unfortunate, then, when Sayaka walked into the store, hands on the straps of her backpack. She walked straight up to Yuuri's aisle, but before she was able to say anything to him, he reached over the counter and tore her backpack away, throwing it onto the ground behind the register to stomp on it.
A sharp pain coursed through his entire body, which told him he had been correct in his assumption that Blade was in the bag. Distributors weren't fragile, but they weren't invincible either, so one of the stipulations of contracting with one was that any magica who attempted to utilize their superior combat abilities and size to attack a distributor would find whatever pain they inflicted quadrupled back to them.
"Blade!" Yuuri hissed, picking the bag up again and shaking it till the distributor fell out, "Care to explain what happened to Pretty Fighter Ribbon Stripe!? Is that same disappearing act gonna happen to Sayaka!? What about me, or Kyosuke-san, or Uamake, or Horace!?"
"Hey, hey, calm down!" Blade shook its head, climbing out of the register area to sit beside the plastic bags at the end of the conveyor belt, "I have no idea what happened to Stripe. He's definitely not dead, that's all I know. I can't tell where he is. Oh One can't even tell what country he's in, either... And Prince Horace has also disappeared."
"We came here to talk to you about it," Sayaka said, frowning, "In the future, please don't take that as an invitation to start kicking Blade around. What seems to have happened is each distributor's highest ranking magica have vanished off the grid in full. Fizzy Pop, Diamond Dust, and Forever Sparkling Into Eternity are also gone."
"...Uamake?" Yuuri questioned, citing Sugarcanesugarcane's best magica. He'd never met her, but he respected her abilities. The entire island chain of Hawai'i had two magica, and she was one of them. If she and all her power had vanished, then that area could very well be left without meaningful protection.
"No," Blade answered, "Only Horace. I think whoever's behind this considered your whole posse as just one distributor, or maybe... Uamake, Lullabye, and Snowy Rose just never received their letters of commendation. There might be a connection between those and these disappearances, since at the time this morning when Stripe disappeared, Sayaka had actually become rank 27, and him rank 28."
Sayaka nodded in agreement, "Right. If it was actually based on rankings, then I would have been the one to disappear. But five months ago, when everyone got those letters of commendation, he was above me. So I'm guessing that's at the heart of it. Blade and I are going to start an investigation to see if there's anybody who has one but never opened it, to try and figure out if there's a magic signature of some sort, something to tell us what type of magic was used, even if we can't figure out who used it."
"Are you sure that's a good idea? What if you get taken in the process of the investigation, huh?" Yuuri questioned, leaning towards her, "Why don't you let me handle it?"
"Cause I don't want you disappearing either, idiot?" Sayaka curled her lip, glaring at him, "Plus, you'll have your own job to do. Distributors are meeting up later this month to put together a plan of action, and it's pretty damn likely your posse's going to be saddled with the job of actually rescuing the missing magica once they've been located. Way more dangerous than just playing detective."
Yuuri nodded, then sighed as he leaned against the register, "Figures that something like this would happen, God. Fizzy Pop and Prince Horace... That level eight never would have been beaten without them there, right? What are we supposed to do about the next one?"
"..." Blade looked down, "Don't know. But some newer magica we've all been collecting are promising. I've made three since that monster, after all. Ribbon Green has potential," It explained, "And as much as I hate to admit it, it isn't like Skorgles' magica ignore monsters. There was one of them at that level eight battle anyway, and a lot of them are very strong. Usually they fight monsters which appear away from urban areas, since they aren't good people, but something so strong is a good draw for them anyway, even if the side effect of it is helping civilians."
"And we're all getting stronger, too," Sayaka noted, "Everyone who's already a magica is improving a ton, which is why the rankings don't shift much. We're all becoming powerful as time goes on. I think that five months from the first level eight, the next one would have to be much easier to defeat, assuming its power stays the same."
"I can only hope," Yuuri shook his head with a grimace.
-----
The missing person's reports rolled in over the next few weeks as people realized that the magica in their lives weren't coming back. The soonest ones came from people who had no idea their relative had magic, of course, but even those who knew came to the conclusion that something was wrong. The heir to an important company, Riko Asahi, was declared missing, and any magica who knew anything could surmise, even through glamours, that she was one member of Fizzy Pop, the less enthusiastic one.
"I'm glad to see that we've all gathered here," Chikd was the first at the distributor meeting to speak, "Even you, Skorgles. I was surprised that you decided to grace us with your presence."
Skorgles looked around the room. They'd picked an old hotel's rec room, using the pool table as a conference table, "I wouldn't miss it for anything. Just because I don't care about rankings and I encourage my magica to murder yours, doesn't mean I haven't been impacted by these disappearances. One of mine went missing too, after all, and it's imperative that you know it wasn't Goddess, but Solar Applause."
"Solar Applause..." Blade mumbled, "26th lowest in the rankings, but that would be your highest rank, wouldn't it, Skorgles? So that's a good point. It is the highest rank, or it was the highest rank five months ago. Solar Applause received a letter of commendation, right?"
Skorgles nodded, "Yes. I'll assume that you know because Stripe received one too."
"All of our missing magica got them," Captive Ham added in, looking around the table, "Forever Sparkling Into Eternity was so surprised and proud. She didn't even know until then that she was my best magica at rank 44..."
"I'm worried about Diamond Dust," Desire Train sighed, staring at the ceiling, "My magica all kind of think that I'm a jerk, but I do care about them. Diamond Dust's husband... He knew that he was a magical boy, and was the second one to file a missing person report after Stripe's grandmother. We need to find our missing magica, because we know that they aren't dead. There's no way we can let this go without discovering the truth behind their disappearances."
"That's right..." Oh One mumbled, dejected. It seemed to have nothing but sadness in its voice, "Guardian Angel is so worried about Prince Horace, and so am I, and so are all our friends. My posse and our magica, especially in Tokyo, want to do all that we can to find the missing magica."
"Hey," Skorgles spoke up, its voice a bit condescending, "Wasn't Guardian Angel the last person to be seen with Prince Horace? And didn't he rocket to spot number four as soon as you contracted him? Haven't you considered that it could be an inside job by a magica?"
Must Pope looked over at Skorgles, eyes wider than normal, "Why would you bring up that possibility? That implicates your magica more than it could possibly implicate any of ours!"
"That's where you're mistaken. Not a single one of my magica would ever kidnap a high ranking magica without killing them. Even Giftwrap wouldn't let her own desires get in the way of collecting magical power," Skorgles laughed, "If you're so mistaken on the Modus Operandi of mine, how can you be confident in any of yours?"
"The only magica of mine that I'd ever think would do this," Desire Train spoke up, "Wouldn't have. I can never predict Future Style, but I do know that she wouldn't take part in making Forever Sparkling Into Eternity disappear. That's the only thing I would ever put past her."
Captive Ham nodded along, "I think that's true. Sparkling and Future were friends. When it comes to my magica... Sunday Devil doesn't like consequences, so he'd be a suspect if the disappearances were unranked magica between the bottom thirty and top hundred. And similar to Skorgles' magica, there's no way Lady Justice would ever keep anyone alive if she kept them this long. She's impatient."
"So it isn't a magica belonging to a superpower," Blem spoke up, waving its eyestalks, "If it's a magica at all, then it's somebody unranked, or in the rankings who's a fluke, not a trend. I'm not convinced it is a magica, though. All of us... This is our first truly human universe, right? Our group's first foray into a world fully capable of free will and creative thought. Every other universe we've dabbled in, the humans have been tools, not people, before we even got there. So of course things would be more interesting here."
"That's right," Sugarcanesugarcane agreed, "We would never have a conversation like this in our past universes. I think what Blem is saying is that... Monsters level 9 and 10 may actually have the ability to spawn in a world like this. We have no idea what those could be. For all we know, monsters really could be responsible for this."
"Nonsense," Skorgles scoffed, "Monsters can't think that much. It's the only way most of your weak little magica can stand a chance against them, after all. All those small fry have going for them is strategy, not power. The only magica who can actually match a monster in power levels are probably Goddess, Bluebird, Prince Horace, Uamake, or Fizzy Pop. And lest we forget, two of those in the list have disappeared off the face of the planet."
"Skorgles..." Captive Ham spoke up, "Who is Bluebird?"
"The second worst magica, of course. She's surpassed Sunday Devil. She became a magical girl last July. It's been almost a year for her now, since it's June," Skorgles answered, "Goddess created her, which is why you all didn't know when she came into existence. I've only recently convinced her to go public on the rankings."
"There are a lot of year-old magica now," Must Pope noted, "I'm surprised, less of them have died than I was expecting. Well, of course there's still been a lot of death, but less than I would have thought would happen. The rankings hardly even shift around that much."
"Of course," Oh One spoke up again, this time masking its sadness behind the fact that it, as the top distributor, had more information about the universe available to it, "Not only is this a truly human world, but there's also the matter of magical culture as it existed before we arrived. Admittedly, we did base our methods on that culture, deeming it more effective in this universe than calling our magically gifted beings mages, wizards, or any other term... But it also seems that thanks to these correlations we created, everyone already knows what it means to be a magica, and what has to be done. The dangers, and the required skills. It isn't often we recruit somebody who just can't handle the job."
"Their distrust of us leads them to be more effective magica," Blem added in, "Thanks to the divide between stories about magical girls who are all sunshine and rainbows, and the stories where becoming a magical girl is just some ploy to get something else more sinister from them, nobody knows what to think of how upfront we are with the dangers of becoming one. Still, if they think our goal is for them to die fighting monsters, that only motivates them to fight harder."
"Enough philosophical talk," Desire Train snapped, then grumbled, "We need to determine what tasks should be given for the purpose of resolving the case of these missing magica! I vote that we still focus on fighting monsters, but with a side goal of finding these magica. Wherever they are, they'd still just die if we dropped monster-hunting to look for them. We all need orbs."
"My posse and our magica will follow up on dangerous leads," Oh One decided, "Blade and I already discussed that would probably be the case. It's going to try and figure out what type of magic could be at play here."
"I'm not going to participate in this side-quest," Skorgles decided, and none of them could really argue with it. It always did what it wanted, no matter what anybody said to it. All they could ever hope to do was stay out of its way and avoid starting trouble with the one distributor who relished in it, "I don't care that Solar Applause is missing, and with your top magica all out of the way, it just makes my goal easier. Informing you of my own magica's situation is the most kindness I'll show to you."
"That's more than anyone expected of you," Sugarcanesugarcane confirmed, swishing its tail, then looked around the table, "Anyway, Captive Ham. The rest of your magica aren't especially strong or high ranking, right? With that in mind, I think that you should follow up on less dangerous leads. Desire Train, your ability may be useful too. The magic used might not bypass your skill of telling where in the same city as you somebody is, so if you have a magica with travel magic, that could be very helpful of you."
"Of course," Desire Train agreed, "I'll gladly do that. I don't have any magica like that right now, but I can try to create one, since I have a charge currently."
"I can assist you," Sugarcanesugarcane offered, "I'm able to appear at somebody's most likely moment to become a magica. I can take you along when doing that until we find someone who's likely to end up with a travel ability, like a... Devoted flight attendant? I don't know. Usually I wouldn't offer help to my rival, but if it will help to find Prince Horace and the other missing magica, then of course I will."
"Why thank you," Desire Train nodded, "That is one thing we can all agree on. We can't have magica disappearing like this, none of us want that. So we can work together for this purpose."
---------
Yuuri Ruka felt, for the first time, that he might regret having become a magical boy. It was strange that now was when he became so worried, with everything Sayaka had said to reassure him, but that really didn't help. Her statement that a level eight monster could be defeated without Horace and Fizzy Pop hinged on the idea that a level eight now was exactly as powerful as the last one. That couldn't be assumed
It was the kidnapping in general that shook him more than the idea of fighting a monster so strong without the best magica, however. His reasons for becoming a magical boy were simple enough; he wanted to have agency over himself and his choices. If it was possible for anything or anybody in this world to kidnap the strongest magica out there, then what choice did he have?
It was terrifying. For the past month, he'd been fighting through it, carrying on despite the dread which sat in his stomach. He could be fine, if he tried, but trying all of the time was just something he wasn't capable of. Not tonight, anyway. There was a trigger for it, of course. He'd been to see his mother.
That was never a good idea, of course, and he certainly hadn't wanted to go. It was required of him, however, because of an incident while he was in high school. A violent outburst against the wrong person had earned him a probation period, and to this day he was required to "see firsthand the effect of prison" by having regular meetings with his mother, even with the technical probation finished.
Not that they could do anything to him if he broke the rules, given he was a magical boy now, but he'd had the fear of authority put into him. Of this authority. Logically, he knew that he could give up on the whole deal and nothing would go wrong. Still, he found himself going. She was just as awful as ever, every time. Prison didn't dull her blade at all. Just seeing her face reminded him of how his life had been ruined, and she always asked about Hikari.
Hikari... Yuuri had never felt bitter towards his little sister. He only envied that she had been spared the full wrath of Komaru Ruka. She almost hadn't been. It had almost been her, until Komaru's criminal contacts informed her that thanks to the number of people like her, there wasn't much demand for young girls. Her son was a much more viable option to sell off at this point. Hikari still needed to feel the sting of knowing her mother had considered it, and she was so young then. Yuuri was the better part of five years older than her.
He didn't blame her for running away. Everyone thought that Hikari was murdered by the Vagrant Killer, but Yuuri didn't buy into that, especially when Ayano resurfaced. His theory was that his sister, tired of growing in the shadow of their mother's misdeeds, ran away with her best friends. She was still out there somewhere, but he didn't worry about her. She would be fine. He didn't say that to Komaru, though. Their mother could think Hikari was dead.
His sister didn't need to keep living in that shadow, even as he was forced to. If he ever stopped seeing his mother, it would still hang over him, because it influenced his entire life and the way he saw the world, interacted with the world. It was the reason he was in this hole now. Becoming a magical boy was his attempt at clawing his way out of that hole.
But now that the dirt was falling back in around him, he found himself lying on the floor of his apartment, looking up at the ceiling. He was probably going to lose the client he bailed on tonight, and he didn't really care. As he tackled adulthood, he did begin to understand why his mother did such an awful thing to him. Everything costs so much, and he could barely afford rent on his grocery store wages, let alone any other bills or food. His mother wanted nice things, and she didn't want to work, and both of those ideas were beyond him. He still needed to supplement his income.
He put his hand up in the air, staring at the question mark on his arm. He'd been drinking that night, more than he probably should have. The edges of his vision were blurry, and he definitely didn't want to try standing up. He could sit up, though, so he did. He kept looking at the mark, and he wondered. He'd been warned to avoid letting it come to harm, but he was just depressed enough and just drunk enough to want to find out what that could be.
He pulled his pocketknife from his jacket, and flipped the blade out, narrowing his eyes at it. It wasn't like he'd never cut human flesh before, but it hadn't been his own. He wasn't quick to draw it, but he also wasn't against bringing a knife to a fistfight if he had to. Being kind of a scoundrel about town led to some situations like that; it was a shame that as a magical boy, he was known for prostitution, and as a human he was known for petty crimes, but it was better than having his flaws all on display at once.
He certainly considered the former a flaw, but only as it reflected on himself. It wasn't something he wanted to do, or enjoyed at all. It was something he wanted to leave behind, but instead all he could do was take pains to make it 'less awful'. The petty crimes and violence didn't bring him so much shame, since those did bring him friends like Kotomi. That much was in his nature, and he felt at home with people like her.
Even so, it felt like a flaw right now. Like another aspect of aftermath, not a part of his personality like it was. Just more aftermath, and he wasn't fond of that idea in the least. He figured, even if harming the mark resulted in some horrible fate like the loss of his magic, or his death, it was fine. He sighed, and brought the knife to his mark, applying light pressure. He saw one drop of blood bead up, then everything went foggy and sharp all at the same time, like smoke with a strobe light inside of it. He tossed the knife across the room and gritted his teeth as that feeling crashed down on him. His entire body hurt, all of it, more than he'd ever felt before.
It was only a second. No, half a second, it wasn't any time at all, and as quickly as it had come, it disappeared. He fell forward onto his hands, breathing heavily, and retched, unable to even move to avoid emptying the contents of his stomach directly onto the floor. He stayed there for what felt like forever, but had to only be a single minute when he heard a knock on the door. God, he didn't want anybody to see him in this state. He didn't answer at all. Even if it was Kotomi, the worst she'd seen him was this drunk, not in this much overall disrepair.
Another knock came, accompanied by a shout through the door, concerned, "R-Ruka-san? Are you okay? I heard you scream!" Of course it was Kanoshi. He groaned. He didn't even realize he'd made a sound, but with the amount of pain he'd felt, it made sense. He didn't respond, but Kanoshi just wouldn't give up, "If you don't answer then I'll break the door down!"
"God!" Yuuri yelled at the door, getting off his hands to sit back again, coughing as he moved, "I'm fine, sensei! Just leave me alone!"
He realized his mistake right away, but not before Kanoshi opened the door, realizing that Yuuri had forgotten to lock it. Quietly, he moved to sit down next to him and sighed, keeping his voice gentle, "Ruka-san, that's exactly what you said to me the day your mother was arrested."
"...Fucking, call Kotomi," Yuuri groaned, bringing an arm up to cover his face, "You don't gotta see me like this, okay? She can deal with me. She can deal with my bullshit, I won't make you-"
"Shush," Kanoshi stood back up, "I understand," He did, too. He realized that though Yuuri spoke as if he was trying not to inconvenience Kanoshi, it was that he would prefer Kanoshi didn't see him in this state. He would do the same thing himself, though. He wouldn't have wanted anyone to see him the night that the high-ranking magica disappeared; he'd been hit especially hard by Horace's vanishing, and had only recovered in the weeks following thanks to the help of the other Tokyo Magica.
He turned around and pulled out his phone; Kotomi had given her his number, 'just in case', and this had to be one of those just in case situations. He sent her a text saying that Yuuri was having a bad night and needed her. She responded straight away, saying she'd be right there. Kanoshi wasn't going to leave Yuuri completely alone until she arrived, but he would do as much as he could for Yuuri, just staying in the room but not looking at him.
Kotomi was there much sooner than Kanoshi expected, and she motioned for him to leave the apartment. He complied, and she went to sit next to Yuuri once he was gone, "Hey, Rucchi. The fuck happened to you this time?"
He moved his arm away from his face to look up at her, eyes puffy, and shook his head, "Can't keep saying shit's happened to me. This time, I just fucked up, yeah? This ain't anybody's fault but mine. I had to see my mom today, so I came home and got drunk off my ass. Not coping well, that's what this is, and nothing else. The missing magica on top of it, and..."
Kotomi nodded, then stood up and went to his kitchen, retrieving a roll of paper towels, "And you did whatever made you puke your guts out, yeah? That never happens when you drink," She started doing her best to clean up the floor, but kept her eyes on him, "You better tell me."
"I only wanted you here because you were the lesser of two evils to see me, compared to my middle school teacher," Yuuri sighed, but he answered anyway. He couldn't get away with keeping it from her, "I wanted to see what would happen, if I injured my question mark," He held his arm out, "Turns out, it's just a ton of pain. More than anyone could imagine. More than I could imagine before it happened."
"More than you could imagine's quite a feat," Kotomi noted, holding her own hair back with one hand as she cleaned with the other, "Look, I'm not against magica or anything, but if you're gonna be one then you damn well better be careful about it. If you're gonna do stupid shit anyway, you may as well be a human. I'm in fights all the time, and I get by just fine, because I'm smart, okay?"
"If you're so smart, then why are you wasting time on a fucked up idiot mag like me?" Yuuri questioned with a bitter chuckle, which earned him a glare.
"Cause you're my friend, and cause you've been my friend for a while now. If you can't understand that, then you really are an idiot," She shook her head with a grimace, "It ain't like you've never been there for me when I've screwed up. I know you'll find a way to pay me back for this. You always do, even when you don't need to..."
--------
"Oi, Moron-sensei," Sayaka got Kanoshi's attention as soon as he left Yuuri's apartment, and he jumped half out of his skin.
"Y-Yamaguchi-san!? What are you doing here?" Kanoshi questioned, holding his arms in close to himself. Even after fighting against monsters alongside her, she was intimidating on a personal level. Especially since she continued to insist on calling him a moron.
She shrugged, stepped up from the wall she'd been leaning against, "I live with Tanako-chan now, and I figured it'd be faster if I brought her. That van of hers may be great, but even it can't bypass eight-pm traffic around this neighborhood. Figured we should get here as quick as possible. So what happened to Rukkun?"
"Your nickname for him is so much kinder..." Kanoshi sighed, holding a hand to his own forehead, "I don't know. He wanted me to call Kotomi instead of helping him myself, I think he was embarrassed. So I wasn't about to pry."
"Lame," Sayaka scoffed, looking away, "You could have at least peeked! Come on, if you called, then you gotta know something about it."
"I heard Ruka-san scream from my apartment under him, then I came up here to try and find out what happened. He didn't answer the first time I knocked, then he yelled at me to go away, but I got worried because he said it the same way he said it back when some... stuff happened when he was my student, eight years ago now."
Sayaka narrowed her eyes, staring right through him, "Yeah, I know what happened. With that in mind, you still turned your back on him until I brought Tanako-chan here?"
Kanoshi fidgeted under her gaze, shifting between his feet, "I know if I was in that situation, I'd want to be left alone if I asked to be... I was trying to respect Ruka-san. He is an adult."
In response to this, Sayaka just turned away from him and crossed her arms, "Yeah, I'd wanna be too. If you found me for sure, I'd probably tell you to get Kaiba-nee, but you know what? She's nowhere around here. Tanako-chan might not have been either. What people want in crisis is never what they really need... You should have kept an eye on him."
"What does it matter if I should have? I didn't, and it worked out fine," Kanoshi defended himself on principle, but there wasn't much conviction in his voice, "I'm a teacher, not a therapist. I don't know how to deal with adult problems at all. I barely know how to deal with kid problems as it is!"
"You were a teacher," Sayaka tilted her head, glancing back at him, "You're not a teacher now, because you became a magical boy. I won't expect you to know how to deal with adult problems, or kid problems, but I swear to God, Kyosuke-kun, with Prince Horace gone you're the oldest magica in Tokyo. So you better learn how to deal with magical problems. You're a support type, so act like it."
"...Yamaguchi-san," Kanoshi gave her a nervous smile, "You really care, huh?"
"No!" She snapped back, bringing her hands up to try to hide the embarrassed blush on her face, "You're my comrades, not my friends. I just don't want to go back to how tough it was to fight on my own if you screw up and all end up dead because you're a bunch of grown men less competent at being adults than a damn schoolgirl!"
"Sure," Kanoshi chuckled, then turned as he heard the door of Yuuri's apartment open again. He was surprised to see Yuuri there rather than Kotomi. He frowned, "Everything good...?"
Yuuri leaned against the doorframe to steady himself, and nodded, "Kotomi talked some sense into me. I won't do anything so stupid again. I... don't want to talk about it, but I guess I do have to warn the two of you. It really is important that you don't get even a little hurt, where your mark is. If you do, you'll regret it."
"Hello everybody," Oh One appeared suddenly, again. It did that often, "Well, Kanoshi and Yuuri, I suppose. I'll talk to the others soon. It seems that you're not having a good night. I hope I can remedy that. I have good news. A possible lead, we'll investigate as soon as possible. Some monsters have been behaving strangely in Nagasaki prefecture, so I'd appreciate if your team could make your way in that direction. After getting your affairs in order to leave for a period of time, of course."
"I'm good to go anytime," Kanoshi nodded, straightening up, "The eSports league that recruited me is salary, so as long as I play often and stay well-ranked when I am able, it's fine to go on hiatus."
"My boss knows I'm a magical boy, and I pick up so many extra hours and shifts to help out," Yuuri agreed, holding a hand to his head, "I can leave... The day after tomorrow. I'll need some recovery time."
"Recovery time?" Oh One questioned, its eyes immediately going to the small wound on Yuuri's arm. It made a strange, concerned noise, taking a step backwards, "A week. We'll need to wait at least a week. Yuuri, don't do any fighting until that's fully healed. That's an order," With that said, it turned around, "Anyway, I'll go speak with Infernal and Lullabye. You two... Ugh, stay out of trouble, okay? Get some rest."
Oh One took off again to inform the others of this lead, and Sayaka pulled out her phone. She was informing Blade of her intentions to join her 'comrades' in their investigative trip to Nagasaki. It would be the first time she went back to that prefecture since the Korekara Massacre, a year and a half later.
At least this time, she'd have people she could rely on. Yuuri and Kanoshi would definitely protect her; and that was just what they were thinking, too. Of course they'd all have each other's backs. Sayaka still tried to mask her involvement in their battles by showing up fashionably late, but being friends with adult men wasn't unusual for her, once they proved she could trust them. That was her life back in Kobe, after all.
Kanoshi was excited to follow this lead. Some part of him was optimistic, and another part knew that optimism was unfounded, but maybe this strange monster activity really could lead them to the missing magica. That was the best case scenario, and Kanoshi was hoping it would be the one which they ended up with. Even with the blow to his confidence of the incident occurring in the first place, even with whatever just happened to Yuuri... He still felt that becoming a magical boy wasn't a mistake.
If he hadn't become one, after all, how could he hope to help with any of those issues? As a magica himself, he stood a chance at protecting everyone he cared about, a better chance than he ever could as a human.
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