Chapter Three: Jumping to Conclusions

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

-Edmund Burke

Because the train was still unavailable the next day, Makoto's mother had offered to drive him in, which he'd accepted.

Unfortunately, it had come with a caveat: since she still had to go to work, it meant she had to leave extra early to make sure she still arrived at her job on time. Thus, the sun had barely even peeked out, yet Makoto was wandering the school grounds, looking for a comfortable place to sit.

A handful of other kids were already there, but they all either had clubs to meet up with or schoolwork to attend to- none had the time to talk with him. Thus, he just plopped down with his back against a sturdy tree, headphones in and half-asleep.

He was starting to nod off when the sound of footsteps woke him back up. When he looked around to find the source, he found himself staring straight at his crush.

"Hi," Kotonoha said to him. "Sorry to bother you, but do you mind if I sit here?"

Makoto froze up for a full three seconds before finally being able to form words. "Of- of course, I don't have a problem with that."

"Thanks," Kotonoha said before gently lowering herself down next to him. "I just wanted to have someone nearby, and everyone here right now just seems to be rushing around like crazy. You're the first person I've found who hasn't responded to me with some variation of 'sorry, too busy to talk right now.'"

"Me too," Makoto managed to say.

Suddenly, a third person in the distance yelled, "Hey, Makoto!"

Makoto wasn't too surprised to find out that it had come from Taisuke. Maybe he'd guessed Makoto would be here early since he knew the train had been taken out, or maybe Taisuke just came in this early every day. Either way, Makoto's group had swelled from two to three.

In an unusual move, Taisuke ignored Kotonoha at first to focus solely on Makoto. "Holy crap, Makoto. Why didn't you tell me that your train crashed on the way to school yesterday? Don't even bother trying to hide it- it's all over the news!"

To bolster that point, he jammed a newspaper in Makoto's face, which Makoto immediately took a look at. The front-page headline instantly grabbed his attention, partially due to its massive size compared to that of the other articles, but mostly due to the subject it tackled.

LOCAL TRAIN ATTACKED, 14 DEAD, CHUUOU LINE SHUT DOWN

Eyewitnesses say mysterious girl known as "Magical Heart" prevented further casualties

"Give me that," Makoto said with a sudden urgency, snatching the paper from Taisuke's hands. He skimmed the rest of the article, hoping no one had gotten wind of anything the other three girls had told him the day before. Thankfully, the two people the paper had interviewed focused specifically on Magical Heart's efforts to drive off Doctor S and made no mention of anyone else, including him. In this newspaper, at least, he wasn't important. And while he'd have to check every other local newspaper to make sure the reports were consistent, his secret appeared to be safe, if only for now.

After Makoto finished and handed the newspaper back to Taisuke, he made a show of looking offended. "Jeez, Makoto, what was that for? Couldn't wait two seconds for me to finish?"

"Sorry, sorry," Makoto said. "Got a little overeager there…"

Kotonoha took the awkward pause that followed as an opportunity to ask the two of them a question. "Sorry, am I in the way? I'll move if you guys want me to."

"No," both of them managed to say at the same time.

"You're not doing anything wrong," Makoto said.

"And you look really cute," Taisuke said.

Makoto immediately whacked Taisuke on the back- not too hard, but just painful enough that it sent a message. "Seriously, Taisuke?"

Taisuke at least appeared to get it, but he didn't appear particularly remorseful, either. "What? It's true!"

Suddenly, Kotonoha's phone beeped, causing her to ignore the two of them for a second to look at it. The second she saw it, she gasped, then said, "Sorry, you two, but I have to go. Forgot I was supposed to get tutoring for history this morning…"

She then ran for the building, waving a quick goodbye over her shoulder but not looking back.

Makoto was less than pleased. "See what you did, Taisuke? You scared her off, and now she probably thinks I'm just like you!"

"Relax," Taisuke said, "Based on the conversations I've overheard during lunch, I'm pretty confident that girls have a really short attention span. She'll probably have forgotten about this in a couple of days, then you can make a move on her again."

The last thing Makoto wanted to do was get into a drawn-out argument with his best friend an hour before school was supposed to start, so he decided that the best course of action would be to not respond so it ended there. However, Makoto remained somewhat bitter that his hopes with Kotonoha had seemingly been dashed, just like that.

Suppressing a groan, Makoto said, "I'm just going to put headphones in and wait for school to start. You okay with that?"

"I don't know why you think I'd have a problem with that," Taisuke responded.

Makoto did what he said he would, sticking his headphones in and sitting with his back to the same tree as before. Taisuke moved to sit exactly opposite of him, although Makoto couldn't see what he did after that.

Unfortunately, just like the last time he'd tried to put in headphones to relax his worries away, he barely heard the first verse of his favorite song by the time something had grabbed his attention once more. And this time, it was screaming.

Makoto yanked the headphones out of his ears, getting to his feet in an instant before scanning the scene unfolding in front of him. This time, it was one of a mass of students charging toward the school while screams echoed across the lawn, although what was causing that was unclear to him.

That changed the instant he frantically looked around for the source of the commotion. The second he'd noticed it, he forcibly grabbed Taisuke's head and turned it, making him aware of the nightmare they'd found themselves trapped in.

A girl who was almost certainly Doctor S was now sitting in the cockpit of some kind of machine capable of flying. She cackled madly as she flew around, firing red-orange lasers at anything that moved. Makoto saw several students get hit in the few seconds where he'd frozen up; the lasers didn't appear to be lethal on contact, but based on one of the victims instantly getting burns so bad Makoto could see them from thirty yards away, they still looked pretty capable of murdering someone if Doctor S desired it.

Makoto and Taisuke didn't stick around, instead sprinting away from the mayhem as fast as possible. They didn't stop running until they'd crested a hill on the edge of the school grounds, far away from the mass of panicking students. Taisuke, though winded, still had the breath to pepper Makoto with what felt like half a million questions.

"Holy shit! Was that girl flying, and is she the same girl from the news article I was reading? Should I call the police? What on earth is going on?"

Makoto managed to choke out answers, keeping half an eye on the scene in case Doctor S took interest in them. "Yes; probably; sure, but it's probably going to take at least the military to stop her; and I'm as clueless as you are."

Taisuke dialed 1-1-0, while Makoto kept half an eye on Doctor S to make sure they hadn't been spotted. While they had not, a large chunk of the crowd appeared to be making a beeline for the very same hill they were standing on, causing Doctor S to pursue them.

Makoto tried to get Taisuke's attention, but he had his back to the crowd and was too focused on making sure the call went through. As the noise of the crowd continued to get both louder and closer, Taisuke started shouting into the phone, probably so the person on the other end of the line could hear him.

"We need someone here, now! We've got a crazy girl on a rampage at Sakakino High," Taisuke shouted. "And this one can fly!"

Then the runners were on them. Taisuke, either unwilling or unable to run, didn't follow the crowd, and Makoto didn't want to leave him behind. However, a somewhat small girl with brown hair didn't seem to be looking where she was going and wound up running straight into Taisuke. This caused the two of them to start tumbling down the hill, screeching curses as they did.

"Taisuke!" Without thinking, Makoto charged down the hill after them as they rolled towards the bottom. To his dismay, he noticed Doctor S alter her route to chase after the three of them, letting the rest of the crowd escape. Maybe she'd recognized Makoto from the day before, maybe he just had really bad luck. Either way, Makoto didn't know and was in no position to ask.

The other two finally came to a stop at the base of the hill. Their school uniforms were covered in grass and ripped in various places, but to Makoto's shock, neither appeared to be seriously hurt. By the time he'd made it to their position, Doctor S firing lasers at his heels, the two of them had gotten to their feet, no problem. They even seemed to be glaring at each other.

"Taisuke and… whoever you are, we've got to move! This girl is…"

Before he could finish the sentence, Doctor S fired a laser that struck home. Makoto didn't know whether she'd aimed at him and missed or tried to hit Taisuke on purpose, but either way, the result was the same. Taisuke remained upright for a single, solitary moment before crumpling in agony, the back of his uniform ruined and his actual back starting to blister.

Doctor S started laughing once more. The girl who'd been standing next to them ran off, screeching as she went. Makoto ran to Taisuke's side, not wanting to leave him for dead. "Taisuke, come on, you have to get up…"

Taisuke was clearly trying, but it wasn't going to be enough. Makoto would either have to leave his best friend to die or become a sitting duck. Both options were terrible, but in the end, Makoto chose the second one- at least that would be over quickly.

Doctor S cackled as she charged up her lasers for one final strike, and Makoto braced for what was sure to be a finishing blow.

But it never came.

Instead, the whirring of the machine overhead suddenly shut off, the shock causing Doctor S to miss her shot by several feet. It plummeted toward the ground, Doctor S starting to scream on the way down, before the noise started back up and the machine jolted to a stop less than ten feet above the ground. As it did, another figure flew into Makoto's vision, this one somehow looking even stranger than Magical Heart had the day before.

In any other circumstance, Makoto's jaw would have hit the floor by now. But at this point, he'd been exposed to so much insanity in the last twenty-four hours that he merely looked up at the new arrival with mild amusement mixed with relief.

The new arrival's outfit was just as ridiculous as that of Magical Heart's. However, while Magical Heart had been dressed in nothing but bright, cheerful colors, this girl's clothing (or at least, Makoto assumed it was a girl due to how much hair was sticking out of her hat) had a certain moodiness to it that almost paralleled Doctor S's. She kind of reminded Makoto of a stereotypical witch- dark clothing, pointy hat, she was even riding a broom. The only thing that ruined the image was her hands, neither of which held a magic wand. Instead, one tightly gripped her broom, while the other held something that resembled a really blunt sword.

She shouted down to the crowd, "Don't worry, everybody! Magical Word has arrived, and I can get this under control! Stay calm, I repeat, stay calm!"

"Good luck with that," Doctor S yelled before firing her lasers at the girl calling herself Magical Word. However, Magical Word was too quick, too nimble. Every shot missed, and most of them didn't even come close.

"Two can play that game," Magical Word yelled back. Then, she flew behind Doctor S before she had time to turn around, and proceeded to shriek the word, "Fire!"

The effect was instantaneous. A stream of fire erupted from both the front end of her broom and the object she was holding, with the stuff coming from the broom scoring a direct hit on the back of Doctor S's machine and causing it to start smoking profusely. Without any hesitation, Doctor S bailed, soaring back into the sky as her machine exploded with a massive boom, sending parts flying everywhere (one of which nearly decapitated Makoto).

That seemed to take the fight out of Doctor S, at least for now. She angrily shouted, "Why do you and your lot always have to get in my way?"

"Because that's what heroes do, Doctor S," Magical Word shouted back. "You should know that already." Then, just as before, she yelled, "Fire!"

Doctor S flew backward, dodging the flames being spewed from Magical Word's broom and the object she was holding, then swept low, probably to ensure that Magical Word couldn't use her fire attack again for fear of having things other than the intended target be lit ablaze. Following her trail, Magical Heart swept low as well, preparing to pass right over Makoto and give chase.

Then, for one perfect, glorious moment, Makoto saw her face.

"No," he thought, "no way. It can't be."

But those eyes… that hair… that smile… why, she looked like...

"Uh, Makoto?" Taisuke's voice was weak, but it was enough to break his concentration. "Need a little help here…"

Makoto took one look at Taisuke and gasped. Doctor S's attack had decimated his thin school uniform, leaving nothing but a tattered rag in its place. Where the lasers had made contact (an area which took up most of his back) the skin was a gaudy shade of red and covered with a million deformed-looking blisters. At the very least, the burns didn't seem to be spreading any further, but that didn't make them look any less excruciatingly painful.

"Oh, boy," Makoto thought. "That's going to need a lot more than an ice pack…"

He took Taisuke's hand, trying to make every movement as slow and careful as possible while helping him up. It wasn't easy- every twitch of his hand brought another moan from Taisuke and he wasn't trained at all in doing stuff like this. But in a few minutes, he was able to get Taisuke on his knees, then his feet, and as Taisuke threw a non-burnt arm around him for support, the two of them began to painfully hobble towards the school.

Making it down the hill wasn't too terrible, but once they were on level ground, every step had to be taken with caution and the two of them no longer had momentum on their side. Once they made it into a more populated area, however, Makoto managed to get the attention of an adult- Mr. Sasaki, one of the school's nurses- who took one look at Taisuke and immediately slung him over his shoulder (eliciting a yelp from Taisuke in the process).

"There's ambulances on the way, and I don't have much here that can help that," he said, before marching off toward the road and leaving Makoto alone.

With no other responsibilities (at least, for the moment, since there was no way school was starting anytime soon with all this having just happened), Makoto focused on the decision he'd been wavering back and forth on for over twenty-four hours now. And as it turned out, the last ten minutes had forced his hand.

He was going to become a superhero.

Before he made a move to blend back into the crowd (and help, if needed), Makoto pulled out his phone and did three quick things to prepare.

First, he looked up the address on the crumpled paper Third Eye had given him the day before. Luckily, it appeared to match with a restaurant in Haramihama- which was good, because it was on the route back home, which would work as cover.

Second, he sent a text to his mom. "I'm going to be home late today, a friend invited me to a restaurant in Haramihama and I'm getting a ride there. Don't worry about getting me, I'll find my own way home." He intentionally left this "friend" vague, just to make sure his mom wouldn't try calling them.

And third, he sent one final text, this one to himself.

"Find out if Magical Word is Kotonoha."