Don't get caught, Hana

Hana was in a large crowd of people, surrounded on all sides by the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. She was used to this sensation, but now it felt different. Everywhere she looked, people were staring at her. The people were continuing on with their day, but the entire time, they stared at her. Hana tried to stay silent, not drawing any attention, but their eyes didn't look away. Even as the people grew further and further away, they didn't look away. Even as they ignored their surroundings, they stared at her. When Hana could no longer ignore their stares, she went to cover her face, but the crowd all began to scream in unison.
"She is a witch!"
Hana tried to run away, but she was surrounded by the familiar hustle and bustle, now turned from a feeling of shared movement through the city to a claustrophobic wave of people, collapsing in on her. The people's hands reached for her, desperately trying to grab her.
"This is what awaits all witches. Never reveal your identity..."

Hana awoke in a cold sweat. It had just been a dream, but the panic she had felt was entirely real. Those words she had heard as the people were grabbing her had been in a voice she had heard before. When she had first learned she was a witch, that was the voice that had spoken to her. It had mentioned someone called the Eternal Mistress when it first revealed to Hana that she was a witch. Was that the identity of the voice? Why did the voice think that the only fate that a witch who revealed herself received was a painful one?
In any case, if Hana was going to stay safe, she would need to never draw suspicion. Even as people looked at her for the slightest hint that she may be a witch, she would never react, never give them anything to hold onto, never give them the so-called "proof" that they need to believe she was a witch.

"Now class, I need all of you to be prepared for the upcoming final exams. If anyone gets below half the class average, they will be held back." As class was letting out, Hana was about to leave when a voice called out to her.
"Ms. Ajikawa, Ms. Mizukami. Please speak with me before you leave."
Suddenly being called out by Demon Sensei made Hana feel the eyes of the entire class looking at her, but she did her best to avoid making herself stand out. As Hana and Mina walked up to the front of the class to talk to Mr. Akumata, Hana eventually felt the weight of everyone's gazes fade from her shoulders.
"Now, I've talked with Ms. Mizukami about this before, but I also need to tell you this, Ms. Ajikawa. You two are in the lower half of the class's grades. Ms. Mizukami, you are at risk of failing out. Ms. Ajikawa, you have little to worry about, but you are still falling behind the average on many of your exams. If the two of you wish to continue at this school, you will need to make major improvements on your final exam..."
As Demon Sensei kept talking, Hana could hear a strange sound coming from down the hall. There were the sounds of boots marching towards her. She was trying her best to not run away in a panic, but her teacher just kept talking and talking. As he kept the two there, held in a conversation, Hana could almost swear that she saw a sinister smile creeping onto Demon Sensei's face.
"Thanks for the warning, Teach!" Mina grabbed Hana's arm and rushed the two out of the classroom. Standing in the hall, there were two massive men in familiar high-tech armor. Some of the students in the hall were gathered around them, looking at their awesome armor, but Hana and Mina were quickly rushing down the hall in the opposite direction.
"We've got suspicions of two witches at this school. Crasher, you go after those two that ran away. Scan 'em before you cuff 'em, this time." One of the two men looked at a screen attached to his wrist before giving orders to the larger man in his thick American accent.

After the mention of witches, the students around them began to panic. They frantically looked around for the witches that were mentioned, but Hana and Mina were off in a different part of the hall by then.
"Hana, you go that way and I'll get caught. I'm not a witch, so I'll be fine. I'll keep them busy."
"Wait, don't!" However, before Hana could explain why that would put more suspicion on her, Mina had run off. Hana had no choice but to run. If she could get out of the school building, then she'd be safe. She was on the first floor, but so were the men in armor. There was only one way to get in and out of the building without using an emergency exit, which would set off alarms, and that was through the front doors. The men in armor were standing just between her and those doors. She could maybe go out through a classroom window, but that would be way too obvious and she'd easily get caught. Her options were to go up to the second floor or to go through the hall to the gym building. The gym had a door to the outside, but it was closed in the cold of February. She could maybe hide in the gym, but that was just a surefire way to get caught later.

Hana ran up the stairs to the second floor. As soon as she was out of sight of the men in the armor, she ducked into the nearest restroom. She couldn't be sure that the men who were after her wouldn't, but she hoped that they at least had enough common courtesy to not go in the women's restroom.
"Has anyone here seen a witch?" The booming voice of another man with an American accent rang through the halls as his thick boots clomped past the restroom. Hana used that opportunity to walk out of the restroom, trying to look as natural as she could, but as she got to the first floor, she saw that the other man was still standing in front of the doors, blocking her way. Mina was in front of him, trying to make a big scene, but he had stopped paying attention to her. It hadn't seemed like he had noticed Hana yet, but she couldn't walk past him without him seeing her. She only had one place left to run. Trying to stay as nonchalant as she could, Hana began walking toward the gym. There weren't any clubs that were meeting there that day, so the gym would be empty, but Hana would potentially be able to find somewhere to hide and hope that the men gave up on finding her.

As Hana expected, the gym was empty, so it was silent as the grave. Every step she took made an echoing sound across the walls. At the opposite end of the gym, there was a storage room and a stage. She had thought she could try to hide in the storage room, but as she went up to the door to open it, it wouldn't budge. The door was locked.
"No, no, no..." She went over to the stage as she started to hear boots marching in her direction. The stage was a wide open space with very few places to hide, especially if someone tried to look for her. She could feel a chill run down her spine as she heard the boots that were heading her way get joined by a second pair of footfalls. Then, she could feel that chill envelop her entirely.

"Crasher, you check the stage. I'll check the door to the outside. Make sure no one leaves this room."
"Got it, Deadeye."
As one pair of boots marched up to the stage, the one known as Crasher threw open the curtains. There was no one to be found on the stage, nor in the wings.
As the other pair of boots marched over to the exit to the outside, he went to try to open it, only to find that it was locked tight.
"No one over here, Deadeye."
"Same here. You go outside and see if anyone's hiding there. I'll just check this storage room before we leave."
"Man, I guess this was another wild goose chase, huh?"
"Yeah. What can you do?"
As the one known as Deadeye went to open the gym's storage room, he could not feel that the handle of the door was significantly colder than it should have been through the heavy armored gloves he was wearing. The only thing he found was that the door was locked. He looked through the window, but he couldn't find anyone hiding in there.
"Yeah, nothing over here. Let's get outta here."

Hana was hidden behind a large pile of gym mats where an unexpected person had pulled her, shortly before the two men had entered the gym. Sitting beside her, also hidden by the gym mats, was Mashiro Takamiya. Her face wasn't the constant smug look that she wore in class, but the face that Hana had seen the previous day when they were at the Bureau of Witch Hunters, when she was staring past her father. She looked like she had absolutely no emotion on her face.
"Why did you help me, Mashiro?"
Mashiro's face didn't change from the blank expression she wore. "You were about to be caught by those Bounty Hunters. I couldn't let that happen."
As the Bounty Hunters had been about to enter the gym, Mashiro had snuck up behind Hana and brought her inside the gym storage room, just shortly before she would have been caught. She had been the one to lock and unlock the storage room. As Mashiro listened to hear that the gym was silent again, she conjured a small block of ice out of thin air, slowly melting and reshaping it into a small key that she used to unlock the storage room's door.
"I would never let another witch be caught by Bounty Hunters."