How Can I Be Sure I Can Trust You?!

The next day arrived without any trouble. A small part of me still hoped that this Third Coven was just bluffing and Aichi would be back home like nothing happened.

Unfortunately, that did not happen.

Today was such an important day with such an important mission, I even remembered to have breakfast. Mom decided, though I wasn't sure why, today would be a good day to make yakisoba for breakfast. My best guess was that she had been watching her early morning cooking shows again and she just couldn't wait to try out whatever new recipe she saw that day. Yakisoba with a side of takoyaki…

That only meant one thing. Mom was watching Takeshi's Kitchen again.

Wonderful…

Over breakfast, I noticed Dad had left early for work again. 

“Dad's been doing that a lot, hasn't he?” I asked Mom.

“Doing what?”

“Leaving for work early,” I said. “Not even so much as a goodbye or anything.”

“Well, your father has been very busy with his government duties,” Mom explained. “I know it's not ideal, but it's very important that he gets to work on time.”

“What does he actually do at his job?” I asked.

“I… I'm not sure, actually,” Mom answered. “He's never really specified beyond saying he works on strange cold cases for the Prime Minister.”

“I see…”

“So, how's work been?” Mom then asked. “I heard you ran into some crazy people during your little investigations.”

“Work's been alright,” I answered shyly. “The crazy people haven't been that crazy except for that one who broke out of prison. I wonder what happened to him after that…”

“Don't you read the paper you work for?” Mom chuckled. “Some witch came to town and chased him out of town.” She then handed me the paper from eight days ago. There was a big picture of me in my magical outfit on the front page, one of the few anyone managed to take of me from the front. “Come to think of it… Don't you think the girl kinda looks like you?”

“Lots of girls look like me, Mom,” I answered coldly and half-truthfully. “I hardly invented the blonde twin tails look.”

Mom then realized what time it was.

“Oh, sweetie, you're going to be late for work!” she told me as she suddenly tried pushing me out the door. “I'll see you when you get back! Love you!”

“Love you too, Mom…”

•

As soon as I left the house, I realized Apollo never actually told me where we were meeting or how we were making our way to Tokushima. But then I remembered… he knew where I lived…

“Hey cutie,” a familiar voice called out to me. I turned around to see Apollo hanging off my balcony just like he did last night.

“Can you not do that?” I asked him. “My mom could see you.”

“You say that like I can't just use The Mesmer on her and trick her into thinking we're dating,” Apollo teased.

“That's not how The Mesmer works,” I corrected him. “This isn't some fantasy book from 2001.”

“Wow, what a buzzkill,” Apollo scolded me. “You're lucky you're cute and we have a common goal.”

“So what's the plan?” I then asked Apollo. “I got money for the train and-”

“The train?!” Apollo spit out in laughter. “Don't make me laugh. If you want to find your Hollow quickly, you're going to need to get to Tokushima quickly-”

“I am NOT flying, Apollo,” I immediately interrupted him, boldly assuming I already knew what he was planning. “I don't do heights.”

“Who said anything about flying?” Apollo asked. “Do you want to attract attention?”

“Well, then, punk genius, what have you got in mind?” I asked in response.

“I'm glad you asked,” Apollo said before extending his hand to me.

“This better not be what I think it is…”

“What's the matter?” Apollo asked. “Scared of a little dance magic?”

He had a point. If I wanted to find Aichi, I had to learn to trust this guy. I grabbed his hand, and the next thing I knew, we were hopping and bopping to the crocodile rock. After the short dance, Apollo shouted “Picture Perfect Position!”

We had been instantly transported to the city of Tokushima, a trip that would have taken us five hours by train. This was a much stronger transportation spell than Hide Away, Hide Away. And true to the description of the spell, the location Apollo chose for us was picture perfect. We had arrived at the old plastics factory.

A relic of bygone days, gone long before I was even born, this factory was once part of a booming postwar economy for not just this city but the entire island of Shikoku. But now, this metal giant had fallen into such a state of disrepair, it made me wonder why it hadn't been demolished yet. Now, it served only as a base of operations for evil sorcerers.

Or so we thought…

As we made our way to the front doors, I noticed a small scrap of paper nailed to the left door.

It said:

Not this old plastics factory, you silly. The other one. We kinda knew you were going to get the directions wrong. Everyone does. Next time, come up with a better trick to shortcut your way over here, okay?

So they knew we would try to pull a trick like this. Prior to yesterday, I didn't even know there was an old plastics factory here, let alone multiple.

I showed Apollo the note, and he immediately doubled over in embarrassment.

“Ah! I should have known they'd trick us like that!” Apollo cried. “Oh well, the other factory isn't too far from here.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“My mom was born and raised in this city,” Apollo explained. “She was a member of the Third Coven before she got tired of their wicked ways and joined the Second Coven.”

“So how does a 17 year old end up being the leader of their own Coven?” I asked.

“I was inducted into the Coven when I was 9,” Apollo continued. “When my mom retired as the leader, we held a vote to determine the new one. And now, here I am.”

We continued our conversation as we made our way to the other old plastics factory.

“So, what exactly do all these Covens do?” I asked. “And why do they all hate each other?”

“Well, that's exactly it,” Apollo explained. “All of the Covens ultimately have different goals and methods. The First wants to conquer the world. Pretty simple. The Third wants to spread chaos and institute anarchy.”

“What about the Second?”

“We try to use our magic to enact positive change in the world,” he answered. “A lot of that is us stealing from the rich to give to the poor who have been so horribly wronged by the system.”

“Do you… want to change the system?”

“We feel the system itself is fine,” Apollo continued. “But if we felt the system needed to be changed, we would work to change it. As for why the Covens all hate each other, well, obviously we have very irreconcilable differences that, unfortunately, lead to considerable magical violence.”

I said nothing after that. It seemed pretty obvious in hindsight that I was in way over my head, and Aichi did not properly prepare me for what lay ahead.

I felt very… inadequate…

“Ayame, we're here!” Apollo called out. We had made it to the other old plastics factory. This factory somehow seemed even more dilapidated and run down than the last one.

Right as soon as we entered the factory, we found Aichi sitting in a small metal cage surrounded by a hooded figure on each side. The guards were looking to stop us from rescuing him, I assumed. Along with Aichi, there was also Fumiko, Sayori's Hollow, Tsukiko the mouse Hollow, and a lamb Hollow I never saw before, each in their own cage.

“Wow, Ayame… ~woof,” Aichi playfully scolded me. “I was starting to wonder if I had to play Sleeping Beauty in order to get rescued over here.

“Baa! Mm-mm-baa!!” The lamb Hollow seemed to agree, but we couldn't understand what she said to make sure.

“Aichi, now is not the time, ~sss,” Fumiko scolded him back. “Just be glad they figured out where we were so they could rescue us.”

“Summon Hollow!” I shouted while performing my most basic bunny hop dance. Nothing happened.

“You just now decided to try that out?” Apollo teased. “Your dog has been missing for how long?”

It seemed obvious now that the cages were surrounded by a sort of anti-magic barrier that prevented the prisoners from leaving. The guards now had their attention turned towards us, apparently awakened by our noise.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time…”