Enjoy your sleepover, Hana

"Thank you, Mrs. Ajikawa, for letting me sleep over tonight." Mina had come home that night with Hana after texting her mom to ask if she could have a sleepover with Hana. The two had planned to try to figure out everything they could about the rules of being a witch. That meant they'd be spending all night, scouring the internet for any rumors, laws, and urban legends about witches that they could find.
"You are always welcome here, Little Ms. Mizukami."

As the two went into Hana's room, they pulled out their phones and began searching the internet. There had to be something online that would help them find out what the rules of being a witch were.

"The only things I know, so far, are that witches die if they reveal themselves to someone who isn't a witch and that a witch has a different heartbeat. Demon Sensei said that was how witches get judged."
"A different heartbeat? Let me hear it." Before Hana could ask what Mina meant, Mina had already put her ear up to Hana's back. This made Hana jolt forward, only to have Mina start pouting. "Come on, I can't hear your heart if you jump away like that."
"Don't get so close to me so suddenly. You scared me." However, despite how upset Hana seemed to be, she turned away and didn't stop Mina when she went to listen again.

As Mina listened to Hana's heart beating, she didn't seem to notice how it was beating much faster than it should have been.
Badump, Badabump, Badabump. Badump, Badump. Badabump. Badabump, Badump, Badabump, Badump. Badump, Badump, Badump, Badump.

"It sounds so random. You know how your heart goes 'Badump, Badump,' right? Well, yours goes 'Badabump' sometimes. It's like it's beating twice at one time."

"Weird..." However, while Mina had been listening to Hana's heart, Hana had been looking at her phone. "I think I found something. It says here that witches can only die if they say they are a witch, or they answer 'yes' to someone asking if they are one. Apparently, witches only die if they do something to prove they are a witch, directly to someone who isn't a witch."
"Well, I could've told you that. You haven't died, even though I figured it out. Just keep acting like you aren't a witch and you'll be fine."
"It also says here that witches have a signature type of magic. All witches learn magic shortly after they become a witch."
"Do you have magic?!" Mina suddenly sat up, excited at the idea of Hana casting magic.
"I don't know if I can answer that question."
"Well, I don't have magic because I'm not a witch. If you don't have magic, you must not be a witch."
"Then I suppose I'm not a witch." Both girls knew that was a lie.
"Man... Magic seems so cool. Go to YourTube and see if you can find any videos of people casting magic."

There were a number of videos of people who said they were casting magic. The top result was an American girl's video titled "Watch Me Cast Magic For the First Time (REAL) (NO AI) (NO CGI)".
There were two girls in a large, empty field. One was filming on their phone and the other was probably the same age as Hana. It was very dark in the video, so it was probably the middle of the night when they were filming.
"Okay, I'm going to cast the spell now. Are you rolling? Okay. I call on the storms in the sky to bring down lightning!"
As soon as the girl in the video said those words, a bright flash of lightning fell from the sky, hitting a tree in the background and setting it ablaze. After that, the two girls started running and the video cut out.

"That seems pretty real. Do you think it was real?" Mina asked her friend, but Hana wasn't so sure.
"Look at the comments. The top comment says, 'Totally fake. You can see the cut between the girl talking and the lightning.' Then, another comment says, 'It's real, I was the tree.'"
"You're probably right. This one says, 'The storm clouds were there from the beginning. You didn't summon lightning. Quit faking.' I think I found a real video, though."

The video Mina had found was someone filming a fight from across the street. There was a girl who held a large staff made of wood that was instantly surrounded by glowing blue light. With a flash, four large, blue crystals surrounded the girl. One of the crystals flew at a muscular man in high-tech armor who carried a massive battleaxe that glowed with electricity. The axe effortlessly cut through the crystal, shattering it into shards that cut the girl. However, the other three crystals dropped from above the man, pinning him to the ground. As the girl was about to run away, she suddenly fell over, then there was a loud bang from somewhere outside of the video. A different man in similar high-tech armor landed in the video, descending with a jetpack. The man was carrying a long rifle with a massive scope as he walked over to the other man, pulling him out from under the crystals. The two spoke to each other for a moment, gesturing to the girl, before the larger man picked up the girl and placed some kind of high-tech handcuffs on her hands, then pulled something that was too small to see from across the street from the girl's neck. As the thing was removed, the girl woke up, but didn't, or couldn't, cast spells. The jetpack man grabbed the girl's staff as the two walked away and the video ended.

Hana was terrified. She knew exactly who those men were. Bounty Hunters. Somehow, she just knew. That girl was a witch and those were Bounty Hunters who were sent to find her and capture her. Those were the people who would be coming after Hana if she ever got caught. If she wanted to survive, she'd need to be able to fight, but she couldn't even cast a spell. If she wanted to learn how to cast a spell, she'd need to find someone to teach her, but she couldn't just ask online for help casting spells. Even if she could find a real witch, would they trust her? Would she trust them? 

"Honestly... I wish I was a witch, so I could just talk to you about everything. I'd be there to protect you if someone came after you."

Hana froze at the words that came out of Mina's mouth. As much as she wanted to be able to talk to her best friend about everything she was dealing with, she also knew how much trouble she was in for simply being a witch. If she was ever found out, she'd be hunted down for the rest of her life, or she'd have to move to a different country where witches were allowed to live freely, but she'd lose the life she had lived for the fifteen years she'd been alive. She'd lived in Tokyo since she was born, all of her friends were there, her family was there, Mina and her family were there, her school was there. Everything she'd ever known was in Tokyo. If she just left, she'd have to start over. But if she stayed and was caught, she be hunted down forever, unable to stay in one place, unable to live her life freely. She'd never be able to see her family, her friends, Mina. She'd never be able to go to school, she'd never be able to go to all the places in Tokyo where she had so many memories. Her only option was to never get caught, which meant lying to everyone she knew, even Mina. It also meant potentially facing off against Bounty Hunters. Would she be able to do anything to stop them? She'd be hopeless in a fight, but she would at least be able to cast spells someday. Mina wasn't a witch. She couldn't cast spells, she couldn't fight, and she could barely even run laps in gym class. Mina didn't need to deal with the problems of being a witch. She could live a normal life. Hana wanted Mina to live a normal life. But even more than that, she just didn't want Mina to have to deal with any of the stress she was dealing with now.

"Please, Mina, never say you want to be a witch. I will always be your best friend, but I never want you to be a witch."