1st December, 11508
"There have been rumours recently of students going missing... Ever since it has been reopened." (Sariel)
"... There has been... Quite a buzz lately. No wonder it felt noisier than usual. " (Arin)
"Isn't that just the usual? In the end, they're just regular humans, they can't do anything." (Yggdrasil)
"..." (Sariel)
She shifted her gaze to the table between the three of them, the faint cacophony of students having lunch lingered in the background. Under this silence, it felt slightly louder as her thoughts slowed to a halt, unable to formulate how she should get her thoughts across.
"... Come on, Tia. Sariel lives with her parents. She must be feeling the pressure of having to protect them.
It's not like you don't have parents either... You haven't met them, but you've been receiving their money, haven't you? " (Arin)
At times like these, she felt like a reliable older sister. Sariel thanked her in her heart, but proceeded to shake her head by the sides.
" What about you? What about our classmates. They also face the danger don't they? Everyone saw that attack." (Sariel)
Knowing which situation she was referring to, Lastia only grimaced lightly. Her brows furrowed slightly and her expression shifted.
" This is indeed... Tough.
Unprecedented, it's natural to feel lost. For now, we decided on observation did we not? It has already been a month since anything happened and the school even reopened. As if all that fuss ended up as nothing." (Arin)
"... It didn't end up as nothing. One person died... " (Yggdrasil)
" I saw that on the news too... The government wanted to strong arm the public into accepting a point. They held a grand funeral, no one knew that girl personally, they... They put on such an ugly show...! " (Sariel).
Yggdrasil could understand where the government was coming from. They were demanding respect with force, and it did possess all of the world's military force. Under their all encompassing authority, normal citizens have no choice other than to accept that the government had put on more respect for this unnamed girl's ostentatious funeral than any politician for the past 11508 years. They were securing the human rights of magical girls as much as they could, it's a given now that the magical girls are actually a branch of the government. At least the sentinels are.
There is no longer divisive governing policies or the fierce debates of the ancients. Governance has been largely perfected to maintain welfare and balance taxes, largely aided by the age of abundance and its near limitless resources. The current form of government was assumed to be a democratically elevated set of people aimed at managing branches of the government, there is no president but there are respective ministers of many sectors of societal management. No one would believe it was an autocratic theocracy, with Eterna as the supreme ruler.
Naturally with all aspects of life there are dashes of truth mixed in with the lies. The earth is under Eterna's rule, but not her governance. She does not make any direct decisions much less interact most of the time, one could say she was simply a figure head with how absent she is. Actual governance is left up to the supercomputers determining the finest balance of welfare and taxation, and enforcement by said ministers that were trained to interpret and explain the decisions made by these major think tanks. The current form of government was said to be the bastion of rationality, a fortress sustained by logic that had washed off the blood of its founding.
Yggdrasil understood it all, the government's motives, it's modus operandi, the factors effecting its decision making and execution... Yet, she can't shake off this unsettling sensation that layed in the pit of her stomach. Unease spread outwards from her core, it was a sensation that couldn't be called unpleasant, but it does give her a modicum of discomfort. Perhaps her gripes lay in the way they held the funeral. It felt almost insulting to magical girls.
"Anyway, we should stop this topic. We're used to discussing in the open, but that only works when there's no one snooping around." (Yggdrasil)
Subtly, she nodded her head to the side, urging them to look in a certain direction behind her. Akira, the girl who aspired to be a fashion designer as opposed to her friend, Celia, who wished to be a model. Most people were convinced that they were good friends, though Akira secretly thought otherwise. She kept her thoughts inside, ridiculing those that assume they understood her, swallowing her displeasure.
She was a hardworker, she inwardly despised those who took things easy. Naturally, Celia's attitude rubbed her off the wrong way. Celia doesn't put much time into improving her academic performances, she dismisses academia as irrelevant to her future prospects. Akira felt like her own efforts were invalidated, after all they were working towards getting into the same industry. How could someone else spend all their time on leisure while she sacrificed her own time and effort?
Yet she held on and stayed with Celia. Her dissatisfaction was just a single aspect of her, mellowed out by every other part of her. Sacrifice is not all there is to her. Perhaps overwhelmingly more, she felt an obligation to take care of others. She had great role models for parents, sparking and nurturing the compassion in her since a long time ago. It was just a possibility, but... Her disdain towards Celia's slothful behaviour was just another expression of her concern. Deep down, she felt Celia was the one who was inadequate and worried about whether Celia could get to where she wanted in life.
Disdain towards unproductiveness, envy of a carefree outlook, anxiety of someone else's prospects, obligation to help others that are in need. A thick mixture of emotions and environments shaped who she was, she wanted nothing more than for her classmates to be saved. However, it led to the inevitable discovery of how her classmates had been acting weird since the start. The trio was under her watchful eye, they didn't give away anything, only speaking to each other as time went on. No one found it suspicious.
With the recent rumours of people going missing, her only lead was the trio that sat atop a mountain of secrets.