Even though the surrounding is quite dark, none of us would even think of using flashlights. It would just act as a beacon for enemy sentries. And speaking of enemy sentries, we’re now high on alert, in case they’re patrolling the area.

   Madoka knows exactly where she’s going, and she guides us through the forest without so much of a pause. She’s even matching our paces too, so none of us got left behind even though we could hardly see where we’re going.

   After walking for a while, we finally see a cave a few hundred feet in front of us. But then, something is strange. I’m keep looking at the cave, but every few seconds the entrance would just…disappear.

   ‘Is the cave put under an Illusion spell or something?’ I ask.

   Madoka nods in conformation. ‘That’s why the locals never found the cave.’

   ‘So, shall we start?’ Sakuya asks.

   ‘Yes. Let’s.’

   As per planned, Sakuya and Mashiro go inside the cave first in order to create a diversion. While the guards are dealing with them, Ichika and Yui will sneak in and disable the cameras and the traps. After the cameras and traps are disabled, Madoka and I will charge in and rescue Sara.

   All of us are equipped with portable communicators that we put inside our ears. The moment Ichika and Yui have completed their mission, they will cue us to come inside the cave.

   ‘Alright Mashiro-chan, let’s go.’ Sakuya tells Mashiro while taking out her Morifuji Tessen.

   Mashiro nods.

   Right before they go in, I see Mashiro summons two snake type Destroyers.

   A few minutes later, we start to hear fighting, shouting and gun sounds coming from the cave.

   ‘Kiryuu, we will be going in soon.’ Ichika tells Yui while unsheathing her Masamune blade.

   ‘Y-Yes.’ Yui says nervously.

   ‘Is everything alright? You look kind of pale.’

   ‘Well, to be honest, I’m quite nervous. This is the first rescue mission that I have participated. I keep on thinking that I would mess things up.’

   ‘There’s no need to worry, okay?’ I assure her.

   ‘But, I don’t even know how to help…’

   I could have just told her. Instead, I give her hints.

   ‘Look, you have shikigamis, right? Think of how to utilize them in this situation.’

   Yui think hard at that. After a while, she got the answer.

   ‘I could use them to disrupt the cameras, so that the enemies in the security room would think that there’s more of us. And… since I can look through my shikigamis’ eyes, I could also use them to find the security room.’

   I nod. ‘See? You can help, after all.’

   Yui looks at me gratefully. ‘I’ll be going, then.’

   ‘Yeah, good luck.’

   Ichika and Yui go inside the cave too, leaving me with Madoka.

   ‘That was rather impressive.’ Madoka tells me.

   ‘Yeah, Kiryuu manage to figure it out by just a hint. She can go very far.’ I agree.

   ‘I was talking about you, actually.’

   ‘Me?’

   ‘You could have just told her. But you didn’t because you want her to think for herself.’

   ‘Wouldn’t anyone do that?’

   ‘I doubt it. Pretty much all her other friends would have spoiled her, but not you. It takes courage to be strict towards a girl whom everyone wants to protect.’

   I shrug. ‘It’s not like it’s the first time.’

   ‘Ah yes, there was also the incident involving the spirit of Kamiya Eri.’

   I’m not even surprised that she knew about it.

   ‘I have to say, I’m kind of surprised that you lot want me to come along in this mission.’ she says.

   ‘Why is that?’

   ‘Well, there’s the way I always act once the fighting starts…’

   Oh, so she does acknowledge that…unique habit of hers is…disturbing.

   ‘Also, these hands of mine are covered in blood…’

   ‘Look, Kojima. I, for one, am not going to judge someone based on their professions. I’m sure the same go for the girls, or they’ll do everything they can to stop me from letting you join us.’

   Madoka looks at me with a doubtful expression.

   ‘You know, I’ve been wondering about this for a while. You don’t really enjoy fighting, do you? Or you wouldn’t think that your insane laughter will bother us.’

   She looks away. Oh no, did I just touch a sore spot?

   ‘You don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to.’ I quickly say.

   ‘No, it’s fine.’

   She took a deep breath before answering.

   ‘My father was a mercenary. He was the one who taught me everything I knew. How to gather information. How to move stealthily. How to…kill.’

   Was. This is not going to a good direction.

   ‘I was twelve when it happened. The two of us were on a mission in Russia to assassinate a gang leader. But the mission went very wrong. Somehow, they were expecting us, and we got ambushed instead. While we were fighting for our lives, one of them managed to shoot my father in the chest. I screamed and ran to him, fearing for the worst. The gangsters took this chance to surround us.’

   ‘Before my father dies, he begged them to at least let me go, but they’re having none of it. They say they’ll sell me to someone rich to become his sex slave. And then…and then…’

   Just as I wonder whether I should tell her to stop, she continues with her tale.

   ‘They drag my father away from me, and shot him at least hundreds of times, even though he’s already dying. After that, they used a machete to chop off his head and threw it right in front of me. Seeing my father’s head made something snap inside me. Everything in front of me went dark. When I finally regained consciousness, all of them were dead, and I was holding a knife dripping with fresh blood. I was also giggling uncontrollably.’

   Madoka takes out a curved hunting knife out of nowhere and unsheathes it. ‘After my giggling stopped, I buried my father’s head and body, but not before I took this from his belt, which was his favourite knife. Ever since then, I always had the urge to laugh and giggle like a maniac every time I’m doing a mission.’

   Wow. That was extremely dark. The original anime should have covered this so that Madoka could be a girl with a tragic past. Instead, she’s just a stalker with a tendency to become psychotic during battles.

   Honestly, I don’t know what to say. I’ve never even suffered a fraction of her pain. And yes, I know we’re having a conversation while it’s mission time, but it’s not like our turn is-

   ‘Kojima and Akira, pardon the intrusion, but we have disabled the traps and the cameras!’ I hear Ichika’s voice from the communicator.

   Never mind.

   ‘Roger that. Kojima, let’s continue the conversation after we’re done here.’

   ‘Alright.’

   Madoka charges in immediately while gripping her knife, I follow her behind with Gáe Bulg in my hands.

   ‘Kojima, don’t kill anyone, alright? This is not those kind of mission.’ I tell Madoka.

   She nods, acknowledging my words.

   The cave is illuminated by huge torch lights, so we can see the place quite clearly. Madoka chooses the best route to head to where Sara is by listening to the sounds of fighting, shouting and footsteps. Sometimes, we needed to hide from them, but thanks to Madoka, we didn’t have any encounter for quite a while.

   Along the way, I see lots of robe-wearing members of Lost Children getting knocked out and lying down on the floor. On a closer look, you can see that an emblem is engraved on the back of the robe. An emblem featuring the head of a sheep biting a skull.

   The sheep head represents them, the Lost Children, and the skull represents the rest of the humankind. Basically, Lost Children are trying to convey a message that they will find the correct path to their goals by devouring the rest of us, who’re already on the brink of destruction.

   Moving on. Besides the unconscious bodies, I also notice that the lens of every single surveillance cameras we passed by are covered up with human-shaped papers, all courtesy of Yui’s ability in controlling these shikigamis.

   Before long, we bump into Ichika and Yui.

   ‘Hey, Kiryuu. Nice job with the shikigamis.’ I compliment Yui.

   ‘Yes, and it’s all thanks to you!’ she says happily.

   ‘I didn’t do anything. You’re the one who did all the job.’

   I suddenly notice that Ichika is glaring at us while puffing up her cheeks. Oh boy. I better give her a compliment as well.

   ‘And thanks for disabling the traps, Ichika. We might have triggered them if it wasn’t for you.’

   ‘..! I-It was nothing, really! I just did my role!’

   Once again, Ichika tries to hide that she’s happy, but totally failed to hide it.

   ‘Can we get a move on?’ Madoka asks impatiently.

   ‘Hmm? Yes, let’s.’

   Under Madoka’s guidance, we reach the cage that’s imprisoning Sara in no time. The place was guarded by around twenty members, with two strong-looking ones standing at the front. One is holding a double-bladed battle axe, while the other is using a rapier.

   I charge forward to fight the one with the battle axe, while Ichika is crossing sword with the one using the rapier.

   My opponent is not only strong, but he’s fast and good with an axe. I’ve gotten better these past few months, but it would seem that I still have much to learn.

   I’ve always thought people who uses heavy weapons like broad sword and axe relies on their weight to deal heavy blows that would create huge openings, but not this guy. He prefer to use the heavy axe mainly as a shield, and use light strikes that create little to no openings.

   He wounds me on multiple places, but I manage to move my body or deflect the blow before the strikes cause me serious damage.

   I nicked him three or four times successfully as well, but nothing serious to be able to incapacitate him.

   After enduring this for a while, he starts to use moves that have big openings, probably because he starts to think he’s going to win. I encourage this thought by pretending to be slow and wobbly, an act which honestly isn’t that hard to do since my injury is getting serious.

   Thinking that victory is at his hands, he intends to finish me off with an overhead strike, which comes with an opening that I was waiting for.

   I use the butt of my spear to slam his solar plexus, which causes him to cry out and bend down in pain. Before he could recover, I punch his jaw with every strength I could muster and manage to knock him out.

   After making sure that he’s indeed out cold, I stand up and take a look at my surroundings.

   Ichika was long done with her opponent, who’s also got knocked out. She’s currently helping Madoka and Yui to finish off the rest of the Lost Children members. I’m kind of glad to see that Madoka is keeping her promise and not killing anyone.

   When the last of the member has been taken care of, we go to the cage. Sara is staring at us intently, probably wondering who we are.

   ‘Kiryuu, is that really Sara, or is she in some sort of disguise?’ I ask Yui.

   She’s surprised by my question, but proceeds to find out by taking out a small mirror that she’s keeping inside her pocket. She points the mirror that has the ability to repel illusions and disguises at Sara, and nothing happens.

   Yui nods at me. ‘She’s the real one.’

   ‘Sorry, Kojima. It’s not like I’m doubting your information, but we can never be too careful.’ I apologize to Madoka.

   ‘No offense taken. It’s not like my information gathering is perfect.’

   She then opens up the lock of the cage by using her lock pick. Seeing that we mean her no harm, Sara slowly gets out of the cage.

   ‘Sakuya-senpai, Mashiro, we’ve rescued Sara!’ I say into the communicator.

   ‘Got it.’

   ‘Okay~, your big sister is coming for you right now~’

   ‘Anyone here knows how to speak Italian?’ I ask the rest of the girls.

   ‘Um, I can speak Japanese just fine.’ Sara speaks up.

   ‘Oh, that’s great then. Come on, let’s get you out of here.’

   ‘Yes. Thank you.’

   We form a circle formation around Sara while advancing towards the entrance of the cave, just in case someone is waiting to ambush us.

   We meet up with Sakuya and Mashiro at the entrance, with some Lost Children in hot pursuit. Mashiro wastes no time in summoning Sogdrul and asks him to teleports us to somewhere nearby that's safe.

   We are suddenly inside a warehouse with lots of sacks piled up in it. Based on the smell, I’d say it’s a warehouse to keep sacks of rice.

   While Sakuya is calling for a helicopter to pick us up, the rest of us try to be as comfortable as possible.

   ‘Kagenashi-kun, you’re hurt, right? Let me tend to your wounds.’ Yui says to me while taking out a med kit with her teleportation magic.

   ‘Oh, thanks.’

   To make things easier for her, I take off my shirt. Suddenly, Yui’s face become very red, and she looks away from me.

   ‘K-K-K-K-K-Kagenashi-kun? Why did you strip all of a sudden?’

   ‘But, you’re the one who said you’re gonna tend to my wounds.’

   ‘O-o-oh right, I did said that, didn’t I?’

   It’s not only Yui, Ichika and Mashiro are also looking at my body while blushing. Madoka and Sara on the other hand are not showing a single hint of embarrassment, although Sara looks confused by the girls’ reaction.

   Sakuya who’s done with summoning the chopper also sees my half-naked body. She immediately got very excited.

   ‘You’re hurt, Akira-kun? Don’t worry, your big sister will look after you~!’

   Is it me, or is she drooling?

   ‘Please wait, Morifuji-senpai! I already said that I will tend to him-’

   ‘No, I shall do it!’ Ichika suddenly decides to join in.

   ‘Mashiro will!’ and now we have another contender.

   It’s getting cold in here, and it doesn’t look like the matter will be settled anytime soon, so I had to ask Sara to help me. The other girls except Madoka sat down at a corner while looking dejected.

   ‘Um, I thank you for saving me back then, but why did you do it?’ Sara asks me while bandaging my wounds.

   ‘Well…’

   I tell Sara about what her father had been doing in order to ensure her safety. After we found out about her existence and his reason for being a jerk, we just had to rescue her. Based on her reaction after hearing it, she didn’t knew about what her father had been doing.

   ‘It’s…all my fault…’

   ‘Hey, you know that’s not tru-’

   ‘It is! I shouldn’t have been born!’

   ‘Hey now, don’t even joke about that.’

   ‘I meant it!’

   She then told us her story. Or at least, she heard this story from her already-passed-away mother Amanda Segreto. My treatment is already done, so I wear my clothes again.

   When Albanese was young, he was the type to fool around with women. He never wished to settle down and prefer to live a live of freedom. That is, until he met Miss Segreto.

   They had a good thing going between them, and Albanese had even sworn to Miss Segreto that he will find a decent job so that they could get married and get a house. But then, disaster struck.

   Miss Segreto was harassed by a hooligan, and Albanese almost killed him during the scuffle. The court had ruled him innocent since he fought back out of self defense, but Albanese never forgave himself. Out of self-hatred, he abandoned his old friends and Miss Segreto and joined the Church, without knowing that Miss Segreto was pregnant with his child.

   Miss Segreto didn’t bother telling him, as she knew her former lover won’t waver once he made up his mind. And so, she gave birthed to Sara and took care of her all by herself. Three years ago, Miss Segreto overworked herself and passed away, leaving Sara all by herself.

   A few months ago, Lost Children somehow got hold of Sara’s existence and kidnapped her in order to blackmail Albanese. We know the rest of the story.

   ‘I could tell that father never wanted to see me, since I would just remind me of his past mistakes! And to top it off, he had to do all those horrible things just so that I would be safe! He definitely hates me!’

   Sara broke down in tears. Just as I was about to comfort her, Sakuya beats me to it.

      ‘There, there. You know it’s not true.’ Sakuya tells Sara while giving her a hug. ‘If what you said is true, he would never succumbed to Lost Children’s demands, would he? He loves you. I’m sure of it.’

   Sara sniffs twice, and starts to bawl her eyes out.

   ‘Madoka-chan, you come here too.’ Sakuya tells Madoka.

   ‘Me? What for?’

   Madoka wanted to refuse, but she got dragged by Yui, Ichika and Mashiro. She was then forcibly given a group hug by them.

   ‘We heard your story through the communicators.’ Sakuya says. ‘It must have been very tough for you. Don’t worry, you two. No matter what happens, we will always be there for you.’

   The other girls nod at that.

   Madoka was unmoved at first, but eventually starts to get misty-eyed.

   ‘Thank you, president.’ she whispers.

   Ah, the friendship of girls. I always see stories on the Internet about how girls would never get along, but this scene made me believe that those stories aren’t true.

   Just when the atmosphere is getting warm, I hear the sound of spinning propellers coming from outside.

   ‘Well then, let’s go see your father.’ Sakuya says to Sara.

   Sara, who had finally stop crying, nods.

   We ask the pilot to drive to front of the Church Albanese is at. When the helicopter finally lands, Albanese is already waiting outside, along with Principal Morifuji and High Priest Kiryuu, who heard about this rescue mission.

   Sara walks to her father awkwardly, probably trying to think on how to act in front of him. Albanese made the first move by hugging her.

   ‘Are…are you all right, Sara?’ Albanese asks her.

   ‘Yes. I’m fine…father.’ Sara says out the last word as if she’s using it for the first time.

   ‘I’m glad that you’re fine. If anything were to happen to you…’

   They talked for a while after that, but had to stop since Sara was exhausted from spending all those times inside the cage. After she goes inside the Church to have a well-deserved sleep, Albanese couldn’t stop thanking us.

   ‘If it wasn’t for all of you, Sara might have been in danger. Truly, thank you. Thank you very much.’

   ‘It was mostly Akira-kun, actually. He was the one who noticed that you were acting strange.’ Sakuya tells him.

   Albanese looks at me. ‘Young man, I am forever in your debt.’

   ‘You’re exaggerating, sir.’

   ‘I am most certainly not!’

   He probably would have spend the whole night just to thank me. Luckily, Principal Morifuji and High Priest Kiryuu stopped him.

   ‘Come on, let the young ones rest and celebrate just by ourselves.’ High Priest Kiryuu says while holding a bottle of beer in both of his hands which came out of nowhere.

   Albanese stares at the bottles. ‘You can’t be serious.’

   ‘Where’s the harm in getting drunk for a single night? You can go back to being a stick-in-the-mud tomorrow. It’ll be just like the good old days. Right, Agito?’

   ‘Yes. I think we have a lot of catching up to do…Adelberto.’

   Principal Morifuji hesitated for a bit when he said Albanese’s first name. It’s probably been a long time since he last used it. That somehow mellows down Albanese.

   ‘...Fine, just for tonight.’

   ‘Alright you kids. It’s late, so you should go back to your dorm, or house in Yui’s case. Kagenashi-kun, please take care of her!’ High Priest Kiryuu says.

   ‘Yes, sir.’

   ‘And please take care of Sakuya as well, Kagenashi-kun.’ Principal Morifuji says while glaring daggers at me.

   I gulp loudly. ‘Yes…yes, sir…’

   ‘Father, please stop glaring at Akira-kun!’ Sakuya walks in front of me and tells Principal Morifuji.

   ‘...Sakuya, did you just call him by his first name?’ Principal Morifuji asks with barely concealed anger.

   ‘Now, now, Agito. Let’s go celebrate already.’

   The next few days had been hectic for Albanese. He went to Italy to explain to the Pope and eventually the people (in front of cameras) that all he did all these while was to ensure the safety of his illegitimate daughter Sara. He then said he’s prepared to accept any sorts of punishment.

   In the end, both the Pope and the people forgave him. The Pope even guarantees Sara a place in the Church should she wishes for it. Oliva, on the other hand, wanted Albanese to be punished, but no one cared about his opinion.

   And there you have it. I managed to stop the war that have caused the deaths of millions of people in the original anime. Not that anyone in this world would know, since it will never happen. And this marks the end of Season 1.