To call it a demon "hunt" is, in my opinion, a little melodramatic. When we go out and destroy demons, it's a clinical process that's designed to minimize casualties while destroying as much as we can as quickly as possible. It's more a harvest than anything else.

-Colonel Shizuki Nakano, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Regiment, 3rd Magical Division of the Euphrates

Oh man, my first demon hunt. That was an experience. In boredom. I mean, really, I was completely underwhelmed by it. I guess as a kid, I was thinking "oh hey, this'll be something cool", but all the older girls just sort of established a perimeter and pounded the demons into submission. Such a drag.

-1st Lieutenant Ayanna Desai, A Company, 9th Battalion, 5th Regiment, 1st Magical Division of the Nile

The talk went about as well as expected. Which was to say, extremely poorly. As it turned out, Emma's parents did, in fact, care about the fact that Emma had contracted, though for the life of her Emma couldn't figure out why. According to Sarah, the shouting and arguing were normal, and doubtless she had evidence from other girls that corroborated this, but that didn't erase the bitter taste in Emma's mouth.

It would help, she felt, if she got to punch something sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, the next demon hunt she had signed up for was not scheduled for until later that week, which was just as well, as she found herself suddenly besieged with medical appointments, a host of things-to-remember, and some time picking up new gear. The TacComp, installed the day after she'd contracted and coming fully online just a day ago, had been a particularly intriguing development, and she'd spent several hours with it on the roof avoiding her parents. They had now decided to stay at home from work for whatever ungodly reason. She had her brand new SW 155 Officer's Sidearm stored in her desk with her grief cubes and the accompanying robot, which she and Anna both found rather cute.

As it turned out, there was supposed to be some sort of social event before the demon hunt. According to the invite, it was supposed to be an informal gathering, but Emma thought it prudent to double check with Sarah before going.

"No, it's really not necessary to go to any lengths for this," Sarah had reassured her over vidcall. "It's just a sort of magical girl excursion out into Mitakihara. Dress in something comfortable and don't be intimidated by anyone. Nobody's going to bully you or anything."

"Shouldn't I try to make a good impression though?" asked Emma.

"You'll be able to do that well enough by being calm and relaxed when you're there," said Sarah with a smile. "Really, Emma, don't worry about this so much. Take a deep breath before you walk through the doors and you'll be fine. None of us from the 8th Ganges bit when you met us, right?"

"Ah, that's true," Emma had said sheepishly. "Magical girls aren't really that different from us normal girls, right?"

"You're magical too now," Sarah had said with a giggle. "But just by saying that you've proved your own point."

And that was how Emma ended up arriving at the sixtieth floor of a commerce tower in jeans, a t-shirt, and a comfortable old hoody. Taking a deep breath, Emma recalled Sarah's advice and pushed aside her nerves as best as possible before stepping out of her transit pod and onto the platform.

The arrival alcove that she had landed at was like any other opening to a specific, highly exclusive establishment. Polyglass panels formed floor to ceiling windows and doors, with the building itself riding almost flush with the transit tube. More notable, however, was the overall size of the alcove, being sized only half as large as the usual reception area, if that. It demonstrated an establishment that plainly did not need a large space to do its business.

It was, however, the interior that really struck Emma. It was a multicultural fusion place named something unpronounceably Icelandic. It translated to "unappealing", a name that did not really seem like a good idea to Emma. Even more oddly, the decorations were almost certainly based off of traditional Chinese aesthetics, which had her scratching her head in the doorway.

"Why would you do this?" she wondered out loud.

"It's apparently a symbolic gesture," said a voice behind Emma. She started and spun around, finding a Japanese girl standing behind her but gazing thoughtfully at the machined aluminum name plate. "Infopedia says it's supposed to represent the joining of the exotic west with the roots of the east."

"That's completely ridiculous," said Emma, folding her arms and looking back around to the gilded pillars and miscellaneous bronze lions. "Surely there's a better way than… this."

"Probably," said the girl, named Mina Hideaki, rank captain, and a mind controller from the Ganges Sector, with a shrug, before given Emma a skeptical look. "But are you or I interior designers?"

"Well, no."

"So I guess we shouldn't really judge. You're one of the new contractees?"

"Yeah," said Emma, putting her hands in her hoodie's pockets. "I, uh, guess you're supposed to be the Q&A Girl?"

"Got it in one," said Mina with a small smile. "You're early. I like that. Come on, let's get a few drinks from the bar while we wait for the others."

Emma kept her intoxication controls on while they waited, but she did find out that she was a fan of Manhattans. The bar was decorated similarly to the entry way, which was really starting to get very disconcerting. Mina didn't seem to be much of a conversationalist, which didn't help Emma feel less awkward with the situation, but thankfully the other girls arrived, seven in total, within the next fifteen minutes, all of them looking somewhat more carefully dressed than Emma but all plainly nervous.

"You know," thought Mina discretely to Emma. "You're very well put together for all this."

"I have a good mentor," replied Emma with a mental shrug. "She gave me some good advice."

"You'll have to tell me about her later, she seems like an interesting girl," said Mina with a raised eyebrow, before ordering everyone a drink.

"Oh, I'm alright without one," demurred Ayane Nakamura, a flier with deep brown, braided hair from Osaka and eyes to match.

"You don't need to turn your intoxication controls off," said Emma, taking a sip of her Manhattan. "These things are pretty tasty as is."

"Sorry, I just don't like the taste of alcohol," said Ayane with a sheepish smile. "It's a little awkward, but I'd really prefer a glass of water."

"You've had alcohol before then?" asked Emma curiously as the bartender set the glass of water down in front of Ayane.

"Well, only a little," said Ayane, taking a sip of her water. "My parents have some red wine on occasion, and I tried some once. It wasn't very good."

"Ah. My dad has a decanter of whiskey, but I never had the urge to try," said Emma. "Well, until now that is."

"Mm."

"What did you, ah, study before contracting?" asked Emma, searching for some topic of conversation. "Well, I guess, what's studying ornithology like? I mean, er-."

"It was a lot of fun," said Ayane, saving Emma from her increasingly awkward attempts to ask the same question. "I worked at the Species Diversity Preserve as an intern."

"Really? You must know a lot."

"Well, I wouldn't say that I'm particularly knowledgable," said Ayane, blushing a little and fiddling with the end of her braid. "The scientists there all had been working for years and years, but I did my best to keep up."

"Well, compared to them, no," said Emma as the others began to talk amongst themselves. Apparently, none of them thought they could be as awkward as she had been. "But, for our age group, you must really know what you're doing."

"I guess," said Ayane, looking away and flushing more deeply. "But ah, anyway, what about you? What did you study?"

"Oh, well, I guess I studied Logistics," said Emma with a shrug. "I didn't really like it though."

"But, if you didn't like Logistics, why did you study it?" asked Ayane, tilting her head to the side.

"Parents."

"Parents?"

"I am… not very happy with them at the moment," said Emma, before rapidly changing the topic. "What research did you do?"

That set Ayane off with a happy smile, detailing the research she'd been conducting and pausing only to order a meal. Emma was forced to scramble to keep up through Infopedia and her TacComp feeding her information directly. Emma barely understood what was happening, but she gathered that it was something about bird migration paths post Unification in comparison to pre-Unification data.

"So you just had to record which birds came through the Preserve during the year?" asked Emma. "Doesn't that seem, I dunno, a bit menial?"

"Oh, that's normal for interns at my level," said Ayane with a shrug. "You're supposed to distinguish yourself in the little things and make your way upwards. Since the Preserve's pretty open, you just take your data and collaborate with the others over the net."

"Well, it's not really my thing, so I guess I'll take your word for it," said Emma with a shrug and a grin. Their food arrived at that point, and conversation lulled around the table as the diners collectively tucked in.

"Say, what is that?" asked Emma after a moment, nodding at Ayane's plate. Their orders had been given over their implants, and Ayane had launched right back into her enthusiastic explanation without telling Emma what Ayane had ordered.

"I'm not really sure, actually," said Ayane truthfully, slicing off a piece of cubular meat product. She gave it an experimental sniff, then nibbled at a corner. "Tastes good though."

"Well, if you're lucky, it's probably goose liver or something," said Emma with a laugh. Personally, she'd rather know exactly what went into the mystery meat, rather than being told later.

Ayane chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed. "Nah, foie gras is a completely different texture," she said. "Have you tried it? It comes out of the synthesizer just as well as anything else."

Emma wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, I wasn't really a fan. Too pungent."

"Oh, did you not get it seasoned?" asked Ayane, popping another slice of meat product into her mouth.

"It comes with seasoning?"

Ayane rolled her eyes. "Of course it does, it's a synthesizer. It makes basically anything!"

Emma speared a green bean with a shrug. "Eh, I know what I like, and it's easier to just stick to that. I don't really care all that much about what food I eat, as long as it keeps me going."

"That's fair," conceded Ayane. "Though really, I'll bet if you took fresh intestines and stewed them-."

"And that's the end of that line of conversation," said Emma with a grimace. She didn't relish that mental image. "What're your powers?"

Ayane giggled but moved on. "Well, I'm sure you've already looked me up, but my principal power is self-powered flight."

"Yeah, apparently it's pretty rare."

"I guess, but it doesn't feel very special to me," said Ayane.

"What's your speed limit?"

"Mach 1.38 in Earth's atmosphere, at sea level."

Emma nearly choked on a piece of potato. "What?! You can break the sound barrier?!"

"It's not that impressive," said Ayane bashfully. "I mean, any given air supremacy drone in the Army can achieve that easily."

"Yeah, but it's still cool," said Emma. "You can go faster at altitude, right? Since you don't need to worry about the air density effecting an engine or something?"

"Uh, yeah, that's correct."

"So, technically speaking, you could do mach seven at ten thousand meters!" said Emma enthusiastically.

"That's a terrible idea," said Ayane flatly. "I'd light on fire."

"Oh," said Emma, disappointed. "That's… that's bad."

"Yeah. Although," said Ayane thoughtfully, "I guess it's not impossible that they'll teach me how to form an aeroshell in flight."

"It's pretty likely, actually," thought Mina telepathically from two seats over. Emma and Ayane flinched. "Heh, forget about the telepathy? Anyway, that's almost certainly covered in basic training, especially since drag's a big factor on your performance in combat."

"That's good," Ayane thought back. "What other basic skills would we learn?"

"Well, there's telekinesis, attack augmentation, breathing underwater…"

It was a long list, and Emma left her TacComp to recording the information as she glanced around the table. The other girls seemed to have loosened up and were chatting amiably about various things, none of which Emma particularly cared about or hadn't already talked about with Ayane.

"Emma, are you listening?"

"Eh? Oh, sorry, um," Emma paused as she played back Ayane's question. "Well, I do live here, but I guess a walking tour of the city could be fun."

(-)

It turned out that Ayane was living temporarily at a hotel near the starport, in close vicinity to the first church of the Cult of Hope. This also meant that she'd actually seen Kyouko Sakura, in the flesh. Granted, it had been from several dozen feet away as the ancient magical girl had been speaking to parishioners, but celebrity sightings were still celebrity sightings.

"Jeez, you're lucky," groused Emma as they followed their tour's route through the city. "I mean, celebrities usually aren't just walking around near where you live."

"I know, right?" said Ayane brightly, who was looking with interest at the first church of the Cult of Hope's main facade. "I just asked the branch office in Osaka if they had any places I could stay in Mitakihara before I deployed, and they sent me here. I didn't think to look it up before I left."

"Doesn't Osaka have a starport?" asked Emma as they paused briefly for the tour to take still images, taking in its unique architecture and the large number of magical girls making their way in and out. "It's a pretty important city center, after all."

"Yeah, but Mitakihara City's the… the sort of capital, I guess, of all things magical," said Ayane, as they continued. "I wanted to see it before I left, you know?"

"Not really, I live here," said Emma with a shrug, following. "It was kinda cool in theory back when I first moved though."

The two fell into a natural silence, their implants automatically updating their route with a line of white light projected in their vision and leading them onward.

"That's my hotel over there," said Ayane, after a minute of walking, nodding at a commerce tower to their left.

"It looks nice," said Emma. "What's it like?"

"Well, all you get is a bedroom and a bathroom, so I guess it's really not that different from living at home," said Ayane with a shrug. "The sheets and towels and stuff are nicer though."

"Do you get a synthesizer in your room?" asked Emma.

"Oddly enough, no," said Ayane thoughtfully. "Although I don't know much about hotels, so it's probably justified somehow."

"I guess," shrugged Emma.

"Do you want to come up?" asked Ayane, as they passed in front of the building. "You seem kind of bored, and, well, the city's great and all, but…"

"The tour's a little dry?" asked Emma rhetorically. "Yeah, I agree. If you're sure, I guess, but I wouldn't want to impose."

Ayane smiled happily. "Nonsense, I invited you didn't I?"

The ride up the elevator to Ayane's room on the four hundredth floor was filled by Emma asking about Osaka. Now that Ayane had seen Mitakihara, did she find anything different?

"Not really," said Ayane as she opened the door to her small suite. "All the cities are connected anyway, so it's not like there's any particularly different culture. Although I guess there's more restaurants in Osaka."

The room was sparsely but sharply furnished, with the single bed against the wall and a desk opposite for the rare times a guest might need to write something down. The carpet was white, without adornment, and a small closet was secreted in the wall of the entryway. Opposite the closet was the bathroom, which combined toilet and bathtub. Sconces in the ceiling cast everything with auto-dimming incandescent-simulating light.

"Wow, it looks pretty fancy," said Emma, admiring the synthwood door jambs and surprisingly large bathtub.

"The best part, I think, is the window," said Ayane with a grin, leading Emma across the room to a wide, outward opening window framed by white curtains. "Check out this view."

"Wow," said Emma, as Ayane pushed open the windows and they leaned against the window frame.

The view from the MSY Corridor was entirely different from the view at Emma's home. Transit tubes and pedestrian walkways crisscrossed the airspace, and despite living relatively high up, Emma's field of view had extended only about a hundred meters before the nest of man-made objects obstructed any further sights. From here, though, it seemed like the whole of Mitakihara stretched out before her. There was the Church, obvious from here with its architecture, and there was MSY Governmental Affairs.

"You can see Mitakihara Tower One from here too," said Ayane, pointing out the high spire that had only grown with the years, getting renovated once every fifty years or so to continually dominate the skyline from a far. Now long buried under scaffolding, trusses, and other construction efforts, the maintenance platform at the ages-past peak of Tower One had been the gathering place for the legendary Mitakihara Four when they wanted to relax.

"This is really cool," said Emma, looking out across the expanse. "I mean, seriously, seriously cool."

"I'll bet they prioritize the new contractees, to impress them or something," said Ayane.

"That's a little cynical, don't you think?"

"Maybe a bit," conceded Ayane. "But if that IS the case, I'm still okay with taking advantage of it. I've spent hours just staring out over the city, listening to my TacComp talk about stuff."

"I would too," said Emma with a nod, resting her head on her folded arms. The two fell into a natural silence, taking in the view in the late afternoon sun.

"Have you-," began Ayane, before stopping suddenly. "…Nevermind."

"What is it?" asked Emma curiously.

"I- well, I was going to ask- but it seems too morbid to really talk about."

Emma raised an eyebrow. "If you wanted to talk about the possibility of dying…"

"No, no, that's the obvious part about making a contract," said Ayane with a sigh. "I guess I was just thinking about how the war's attrition rates are kind of horrendous. I… I was going to ask if you thought we should write out a will, before we deployed."

"There'll be time for that later," said Emma. "I mean, we still have to go through training, right? And then there's that garrison duty. So we're not going to be actually doing any serious combat for at least a month."

"Yeah, but…"

"But?"

"I… I guess I'm just scared," said Ayane. "I'm what, fourteen? And now I'm supposed to be a great defender of all this?" She gestured at the view in front of them. "We're going to war two days from now, and, and-." She broke off, swallowing hard.

"You're not alone though," said Emma, looking off into the distance. "I bet a lot of new girls are afraid."

"You're not."

"You kidding me? Of course I am," said Emma with a laugh. "I've got a twin sister, you know. She's really important to me."

"But you were so calm at lunch!"

"I've got a mentor to help me through some of this stuff," said Emma. "Don't you?"

"I, no, no I don't," said Ayane sadly. "The girl who recruited me brought me to Osaka's MSY branch and left as soon as possible."

"Oh, that's- wow," Emma was flabbergasted. "Wow. That was irresponsible."

"That's what the girl at the desk said," said Ayane with a frown. "But I was too busy freaking out about being able to fly to really be bothered. I didn't really start getting afraid until the flight here."

"Well, it's normal to be excited," said Emma. "I mean, you just turned into a being of impossible power, it's not like you're going to be all that concerned with the 'ifs' when you can do loop-de-loops."

Ayane nodded, and sat down on the bed. "How're you handling it? Being a magical girl?"

"To be honest, it's not sunk in at all," said Emma, falling backwards onto Ayane's bed with a thump, before raising her hand to look at the ring on her finger. "It's still kinda surreal, to think that my soul's in this little gem now."

"Yeah," said Ayane, summoning her own soul gem, colored soft amber and embossed with bronze. She looked at it contemplatively. "You know, we could accidentally kill ourselves if we tripped and our gem tumbled off a balcony."

"And you were talking about being too morbid earlier," said Emma with a roll of her eyes.

"Well it's your fault for making it not awkward to talk about things like that," said Ayane, sticking her tongue out childishly at Emma. "Besides, it's not like saying it will make it happen."

"Not true!" said Emma, pointing a finger at Ayane emphatically. "First rule of football: never actually say what you need to do to win, because then you'll never actually succeed."

"But how would you tell your team?" asked Ayane, brow furrowed in confusion.

"Eye signals," said Emma with a nod. "A true team needs only to look each other in the eye to communicate everything they need. Such a bond transcends even romance! It is as if all the team were bound together as one soul, pulsating with the need to-!"

Ayane threw a pillow at her. The situation, and the pillows, deteriorated from there.

(-)

"I guess this is it."

Emma was standing in the starport receiving area with her family, Ayumi, Sarah, and Ayane. Sarah was still on leave, but said quite explicitly that she would be sending Emma off. Ayane, it had turned out, was leaving on the same date. Since her family was still in Osaka, she had already said her goodbyes.

The demon hunt the previous day had gone off without a hitch, with the new contractees integrating well with the main force. They had ended the hunt with a double checking that they had all their new equipment and upgrades from orientation, then exhortations to not miss their flight. Of course, this meant that Emma was early once more, too anxious to sit around at home until it was time to leave.

Now, though, she regretted getting to the starport so early. The impending departure now unavoidably obvious, waiting with her family and Ayumi had been torture, and she had fidgeted quietly the entire time as Ayane and Sarah made stilted conversation with Ayumi and Emma's family until her shuttle number had been called.

"You'll be back before you know it," said Ayumi with a confident nod. "We'll all be here, obviously, so get back in one piece, alright?"

"I will," said Emma. "Though I might have to regrow a limb."

"That's fine, it'll just be something else to talk about," said Anna, once again trying not to cry. "Just be sure that the stories you bring back are all good ones, okay? Nothing sad."

"I'll do my best," said Emma. "No guarantees."

The girls laughed at this. They weren't entirely sure why they were laughing, but it was certainly better than crying. As their laughter died, Emma sighed and turned to her parents. They stared at each other for a moment.

"You know, it'd be stupid of me to forget the first twelve years of my life," Emma said finally. "These last two years were hard, and I'm still angry about them-," both her parents winced but let her continue "-but thank you. For before then."

"Emma," said her mother, "We just-."

Emma held up a hand. "I- no. No, not right now. This isn't the time. I'm.. I'm about to go away, and I might end up dying. I know you love me, okay? But I can't deal with any more than that."

They looked at each other again. "Alright," her father sighed, finally. "I, at least, can understand where you're coming from on this. Just… just come back to us, okay Emma?"

Emma swallowed. "I can do that."

Silence descended.

"So, before you go, some advice," said Sarah, stepping forward and calling Emma and Ayane's attentions. "First and foremost is don't give up. Whatever you do, never doubt that what you're doing will, in the end, help somehow."

"What if.. what if we mess up and-?" began Ayane.

"Even if that happens, nobody is going to judge you for doing the best you can in the situation," said Sarah reassuringly. "Decisions made in the midst of battle will never be perfect. That's the second thing you two need to remember: your best is always enough. We recognize those who go beyond that because it is hard to do so."

"What about promotions and our careers?" asked Emma. "Shouldn't we try and move up the ladder?"

Sarah sighed. "The military is not for everyone, Emma. Maybe you'll find that you do well in the military, or maybe it's just not possible for you to reintegrate after your first deployment. But don't go into this thinking that you have to move up the chain of command. There is no shame in retiring the same rank as when you enlisted. Do you two understand?"

Emma and Ayane nodded. With another sigh, Sarah placed her hands on both their shoulders.

"Alright, good," she said, gripping their shoulders tightly before letting go. "There's nothing more I can say that can prepare you any more. Both of you, feel free to call me if you ever need help and my status is set to available."

"But, isn't that something you only do with your mentor?" asked Ayane. "I don't have one, and it'd be impolite to barge in on your relationship with Emma."

"It's fine, don't worry about it," said Emma, nudging Ayane. "Come talk to me and I can ask Sarah for you, if you're not comfortable with it, okay?"

Ayane looked between the two of them for a moment before nodding. "Okay."

Anna grasped her sister by the hand. "Make sure to call me too, okay? If you ever get some free time, I want to know how you're doing. Mum and Dad as well."

"Of course," said Emma, with a nod. She turned and caught her parents' eyes, which shone with unshed tears. Emma bit her lip and quickly looked away. "Absolutely. I'll do so as soon as possible, but training is going to be pretty busy."

"I know, but don't forget, okay?" said Anna one last time. She let go of Emma's hand, letting Ayumi step forward.

"So," Ayumi said, folding her arms. "Like I said, we'll be here, so just get back here in one piece, you soccer-obsessed lazy-bones."

"I've told you a thousand times already, it's called football," said Emma with a smile. "Get it right, nerd."

The two chuckled at each other. It still seemed odd that they were friends, but what else would they call their relationship?

"Your guys' shuttle is going to leave soon," said Ayumi, nodding at the entry way. "You better get going."

"Yeah, we should," said Emma, looking down. She nudged her bag with her foot, packed with a few sets of civilian casual and formal wear, her grief cubes, the CubeBot that came with them, and her sidearm. Everything else, she could retrieve from her personal datacloud. The bag teetered briefly, before coming back upright as the final boarding call for their shuttle flickered across her vision.

"Al-alright then," said Emma, swallowing nervously again. She looked around to her family, Ayumi, and her mentor. It would be a long time until she met them in peace like this. "I'll see you again soon."

With her bag dutifully following behind her, Emma turned and stepped onto the shuttle.