What could go wrong?

“It’s all well and good declaring your righteous war on these supposed puppeteers,” said Higgs, like a pompous arse, “but how exactly do you intend to act on said declaration? Are these enemies not utterly elusive?”

The three of us had returned home and informed our guides of the decision we had made. We were met with, admittedly completely valid, skepticism.

“Well, that’s exactly what we’re here to talk about, innit?” Replied Fujiko. “So far, we ain’t know shit about these bastards. So where we gonna start?”

“I checked for the name ‘Aki’ in every Magical Girl registry I could find, but unsurprisingly came up short,” said Ryou. “A similar search for Graviton also found nothing. With four names related to this organisation all failing to appear on the registry, it’s quite clear they have tight control of information. For Kurogaisha to know of them yet have no records of their magical girls simply makes no sense whatsoever.”

In other words, we didn’t have a single lead. Our enemies were smoke, and we were trying to catch them with our bare hands.

Fucking fantastic.

“Are ye no forgettin somethin important?” Interjected Electron. “That CEO bloke, he kent this group ye’re efter. Only cuidnae weasel mair oot o him cause they blue him to bets.”

“…Fuji, can you translate?”

“You guys are forgetting that the CEO guy did know something about Kageno. We only couldn’t get more info out of him ‘cause they blew his head off.”

“Well unless his head can still talk after being explosively severed from his neck, I doubt that lead is gonna help a whole tonne, cat.”

“Don’t be certain, dear girl,” said Ryou. “It is true that Kurogaisha’s CEO will hardly be a useful interrogation target after being used as an improvised explosive device, but it is doubtful he is the only one who knew of them. If they truly do influence the state and corporations as we have guessed, other corporate executives may be our best lead.”

This was followed by contemplative silence. I had a feeling each and every one of us was going through the same thought process.

The only applicable method to attaining information seemed to be ‘procuring’ one of said CEOs, likely by kidnapping. I didn’t have any sympathy for those greedy corpo bastards, don’t get me wrong, but they’d almost certainly be massively beefing up security after the Kurogaisha disaster. A direct attack on any major corporate exec would be risky at the least and downright suicidal at worst.

Not to mention the elephant in the room.

“You guys do remember that just speaking someone’s name was enough for the last guy to catch a terminal case of throat grenade, right?” I could live the rest of my life without ever seeing that again.

“That… is a problem we will have to figure out as the time comes…” said Ryou sheepishly. For someone usually so confident in her schemes, she hardly seemed convinced by her own words.

“So lemme get this straight, yeah?” interjected Fujiko, “we’re gonna nab someone who’s surrounded by MPs 24/7, who can’t talk about the thing we’re questioning him on, and who might turn into a human-shaped stick of dynamite if we approach this wrong?”

“Yes, dear girl, that is about the half of it.”

“…welp, I’m in. What could go wrong, right?”

I made a mental note to beat Fujiko to death for saying that when this operation inevitably went tits-up.

“Look, I’m no stranger to improvising-“

“Much to my dismay.”

“Dammit, Time, let me speak. What I was trying to say is that, even for me, this ‘plan’ has too many unknown factors. Hell, we don’t even know who to start with. There’s a dozen megacorps based in Shibuya alone, and we have no idea which ones are working with or against Kairai. What are we gonna do, kidnap every CEO in the city?” I looked around the room, and all five of my companions seemed to look awkwardly between each other. “...oh my god, you actually want to kidnap every CEO in the city, don’t you?”

“I mean… we don’t got any other leads, do we?” said Fujiko, so casually it was almost aggravating.

“This isn’t a lead! It’s a suicide mission! Every time we go after one, all the others are gonna beef up their security more and more. Unless you want every samurai in the damn country after us, we need a better plan.”

“Dangerous or not, it’s a starting point. Unless you have any other suggestions?” said Ryou. Her tone was almost pleading, as if she was just as desperate as me for another approach.

“I…” I wracked my brains for a moment but nothing came to mind straight away. Kageno Kairai… Z and W… Graviton… untraceable magical girls… “...hey, you cats wouldn’t happen to know one of your own kind that can control gravity, would ya?”

I almost felt hopeful for a second, but all three of them shook their heads, and my hopes immediately deflated.

“Other than these two, my interactions with others of my kind have been brief and passing at best,” said Higgs.

“Afore Ah met yer lass here, Ah had ne'er even seen anither guide. We dinnae exactly meet up for tea an crumpets every week,” added Electron.

“Outside of these two, the only other magical guide I’ve ever met is my brother, Space,” said Time in dismay.

“You’ve got a brother?” I asked. “Is it possible he…”

I didn’t need to finish my sentence for Time to know what I was asking, but once again she slowly shook her head.

“It’s been a really long time since I last saw him, but his powers weren’t at all like any we’ve seen. I’m pretty sure I’d recognise him immediately.”

I sunk down into the sofa. I couldn’t think of any other possible leads. Was this really our only option? We had already made an enemy of the entire corporate world, no doubt, but this was on another level. It was tantamount to an outright declaration of war. And if we were too slow to affect real change, the masses who supported us would almost definitely take it as a sign to rise up.

If we failed? It would be catastrophic.

If we succeeded? Maybe worse.

Yet, the more I thought about it, the more I simply couldn’t think of any other way. If we wanted to take on Kairai, we had to know more about them. And this was our only lead.

“...we’re gonna have to be really damn careful about this,” I sighed.

“Oh, worry yourself less, dear girl,” said Ryou, a slight smile on her lips. “I’m sure I can come up with something.”