*
It's been 3 weeks since the trip to the amusement park. It was the last week of January 11509. Nothing much has changed. If Sariel were to be honest, she might have believed she could become drastically different. Far stronger, far more dependable. So when the other two somehow came back one day, they would start relying on her. For a small example, they've been missing out on lessons since the start of the new year, now that she's ahead she could even tutor them!
... No need to get ahead of herself. During lunch break, she went out of the classroom. She hadn't felt peckish for a while, so she simply desired a couple of pastries like buns that were easy to eat. As she walked past the interconnecting hallway, she spotted Aura. Before she knew it, she had closed the distance and put a palm over Aura's shoulder.
"Yo. You guys having a break now?" (Sariel)
She was with Pepper, and they seem to be discussing what meal they wanted to purchase. It was an odd coincidence, usually those of different years had different break times. They must have had some sort of event that shifted their usual schedule up.
"Yeah, we had an assembly earlier... The school decided to announce Dina's disappearance." (Aura)
"Huh...? I see, speaking of which, she didn't come home with us that day? I always felt something was missing ever since I arrived home." (Sariel)
She slightly grimaced, making a show out of reminiscing a strange period of time. She needed to sell it, the law of mystics and magical girls would cognitively obscure key details for her, in a way she didn't need to act too hard or care about the finer points to trick Pepper. However she still needed to try a bit, to trigger the law's masking.
"It's... Strange, and also so horrifying. Nothing has happened to us, but gradually I had to snap out of it and realise someone dear was missing. By the time it settled in that Dina was gone, it had already been a couple weeks and I didn't even have the chance to feel afraid that I would be next. " (Pepper)
Since a couple weeks had passed while nothing happened, if was safe to conclude if was a one off incident with Dina. Or at least that was the easiest thing for Pepper to tell herself without breaking down in fear. Her friend had mysteriously vanished, not a body to be found and no leads either. Rather the last few leads that the police had were them, since they were last seen together. Today was the day they would be taken in a for a little questioning at the police station, since public authorities decided to act. The school had to address this issue openly, to stop rumours of the supernatural at work.
The world government is a front facing entity that is aware of the existence of magical girls. After The Invader was defeated, somehow most of the damage had been undone and the law of mystics once again put a veil over the existence of magical girls. They were no longer common knowledge and once again regarded as fairy tales. A lofty concept far separated from reality and daily life.
"You don't have to worry. They'll understand." (Sariel)
"How would you know?" (Pepper)
"... Trust, in my gut feelings. I'm sorry, it's not very reassuring, is it? It's alright, nothing will come out of this. " (Sariel)
The police couldn't help them find Dina either. Truly, nothing will be changed. When Sariel returns to the classroom with her buns, she instinctively walks towards the seats in the back, near the centre of the classroom. The world truly felt foreign to her then, a different floor level of the building, a different classroom, a different break time... Yet it all felt the same enough that she would gun for Lastia's seat. Why?
The cold air of the school building suffused into her clothes, sapping her warmth from her exposed nape. There was no one there occupying the seats, the vacancy in her class left by the two was never plugged up. In that moment, the sense of familiarity and the stimulation of the unknown blended together into a crushing icy loneliness. The contrast from the old and the new, the force of reality pried her eyes and mind open like an unforgiving curse.
"Haa~ haa~ haa~" (Sariel)
Her breath was getting shorter and shorter. She needed to calm down, this wasn't the first time this happened.
"Haa~~~ haa~~" (Sariel)
Taking deep breaths discretely, she strode towards her actual seat, pulled put the chair and fell into it. The rest of the day went by uneventfully. She finished her buns, endured through lessons, and left for the police station within the school compounds. In a residential zone, there were nothing but homes as far as the eye could see, save for the school zone in the centre that had every facility a city needed to function. Medical facilities, groceries and other important places were situated nearer to the boundary of the school zone.
When she stepped in, she was greeted by a shower of cool air. Pepper and Aura stepped in after her, strangely relief by her unchanging complexion. No matter where she went, Sariel never changed, at least in their hearts. Their seemingly unfazed senior was cool and reliable in that aspect. Rather than the colourful reason that they imagined Sariel put up a front for the sake of her juniors, it's more likely that the experience of having fought Heavenly Kings had made normal civil life far more dull for Sariel.
When they entered the different rooms for interrogation, the doors shut behind them. Rather than interrogation, the security camera feed couldn't trace Dina's trail, and they couldn't find Dina's body anywhere if it were hidden in the amusement park. Not even after searching for a week. There wasn't any way to trace Dina's disappearance to the three suspects even if they were the last to see her. The camera feed of the food centre was corrupted, so they couldn't see what had happened during the time of disappearance either.
A solar flare occurred and a ray of radiation shot into the security footage at that moment, corrupting it. Naturally, this was the work of the law of mystic. Concealing the existence of magic from normal humans. Sariel took her seat, facing the female officer.
Rather than an officer... She looked like a young girl with glossy brown hair. Her deep blue and black dress was reminiscent of a police uniform's palette, but those frills and patterns are unavoidable.
"... You... Are you from zone 1A? What do you want?" (Sariel)
"... As expected, you immediately saw through the cognitive masking like a layer of glass and surmised I'm a magical girl.
I need help. We lost someone too, a magical girl. " (?)